If you read David Hawpe’s column in today’s Courier-Journal, you may have been surprised to learn that he received an inscribed football from the members of the 1961-’62 freshman football team at the University of Kentucky. Why the surprise? Well, suffice it to say that in his long and distinguished editorial career, David has exhibited […]

[Read more →]

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 […]

[Read more →]

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 […]

[Read more →]

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 […]

[Read more →]

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 […]

[Read more →]

I used to think that post-season conference basketball tournaments were established purely so that greedy college presidents and athletics directors could gouge even more money out of the fans and TV networks. I thought that conference tournaments cheapened the regular season and put unreasonable demands on those athletes who also took their academics seriously.
But I’ve […]

[Read more →]

The same University of Kentucky basketball fans who are deliriously happy with the Wildcats’ 18-11 record in Coach Billy Clyde Gillispie’s first regular season would be furious if Tubby Smith were still the coach and the record was exactly the same.
Go figure.
Surely we can all agree that Smith did such excellent work during his first […]

[Read more →]

Our state’s intrepid sports media covers University of Kentucky basketball like the dew covers Dixie, to quote the motto of a Southern newspaper, so it’s surprising that we don’t have the answer to the biggest question of the season: What in the name of Adolph Rupp got into the Wildcats in the week between Jan. […]

[Read more →]

Nobody asked me, but…
A few weeks ago, I argued that now would be a good time for University of Kentucky football coach Rich Brooks to retire – he’ll be 67 when the Cats open against Louisville this fall – and turn the reins over to Joker Phillips, the offensive coordinator who’s done such a splendid […]

[Read more →]

As expected, the battle on the floor between Kentucky and Louisville wasn’t nearly as interesting as the internal battle between Wildcat coach Billy Clyde Gillispie and his players. At no point this season have the new coach and his players seemed to be on the same page, all pulling together for the common good.
Something’s going […]

[Read more →]