The arrival of the Celtics and Lakers in the NBA finals sparked a wave of nostalgia about the legendary rivalry between the franchises. Most of the history pieces revolved, fittingly, about the megawatt duels between the Larry Bird Celtics and the Magic Johnson Lakers in the 1980s and early ‘90s.
But maybe because it’s summer, and […]

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Today let us give thanks to Kentucky basketball coach Billy Clyde Gillispie for making sure that our commonwealth looks like the Goober capitol of the college hoops world. You can hear the jokes now, can’t you? You know, the ones about how basketball is so important in Kentucky that cradle-robbing now is an essential part […]

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Tom Crean’s excellent adventure as Indiana University basketball coach took a really weird turn in April, when Eli Holman, a 6-foot-9 sophomore-to-be, came to the office to tell the coach he was transferring. During the meeting, Holman became so agitated that Crean, fearing Holman might be “a danger to himself and others,” called the campus […]

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SAN ANTONIO – You may be shocked to learn that precocious freshman guard Derrick Rose, didn’t matriculate – is that a great word or what? – at Memphis because he thought John Calipari was a coaching genius, because he loves ribs and Beale Street, or because he really liked the business school.
The truth is, he […]

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SAN ANTONIO – So here we were, standing in front of the Hyatt, waiting for an ESPN car to pick up my friend, Robert Montgomery Knight, the noted college basketball analyst, and his entourage, which included his wife Karen and yours truly.
The fans materialized immediately, bringing balls and papers to be signed. A couple only […]

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The obits about Bill Keightley, who died at 81 Monday evening, say that he had been the University of Kentucky’s basketball equipment manager for 47 years. Unfortunately, that’s not quite accurate. In fact, I used to kid “Mr. Wildcat” about padding his resume.

Through the 1961-’62 season, UK’s equipment manager was S.C. “Buster” Brown. I’m not […]

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Nobody asked me, but…

Now we know exactly how weak the Southeastern Conference was this season. Louisville 69, Tennessee 50. So much for the league’s best team and last NCAA survivor. I said all season the Vols were too selfish to win it all. To get the ball, Chris Lofton practically had to steal it from […]

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The network talking heads – yes, that includes you, Bob Knight – are using the C-word, as in Cinderella, to talk about Western Kentucky’s scramble into the NCAA tournament’s “Sweet Sixteen, but if they’ll check the history books they’ll find that the Hilltoppers aren’t exactly your basic Davidson or, for that matter, George Mason.
Long before […]

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It was 50 years ago this month that I was a 15-year-old ninth-grader, skipping classes at Morton Junior High in Lexington so I could sell soft drinks for the Turf Catering Co. at the 1958 Kentucky State High School Basketball Tournament in Memorial Coliseum.
For a kid who loved sports, it was a great way to […]

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Funny how things work out, but Kentucky’s path to the NCAA tournament’s Sweet Sixteen is less daunting than the ones faced by Louisville and Indiana. Besides that, the Cats get a trip to balmy Southern California.
Somebody on the tournament committee must like Billy Clyde Gillispie.
After Georgia – Georgia! – completed its improbable run through the […]

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