Photo by Chet White | UK Athletics

If 2020-21 has taught us anything, it’s that life is short and it is very precious. Living under a once-in-a-century plague, the news inundates us with daily death tolls. And this is on top of the countless other ways that tragedy can strike, at any moment.

Boston native and Kentucky Wildcats NBA Draft prospect Terrenence Clarke had everything going for him, and it was all still in front of him. “Taken too soon, or “way before his time” is an extreme understatement for this situation. It’s brutally beyond unfair that his time had to come while he was still so young.

[Read more…]

9-16, 8-9 in league For the first time since 2013, and just the third since 1991, the Kentucky Wildcats missed the NCAA Tournament. With a record of 9-16 (8-9 in the SEC) it was a season to forget in Lexington, and the kind of campaign that almost never, ever happens to Big Blue.

Kentucky leads everybody in total NCAA tournament appearances (59), NCAA tournament wins (131), NCAA Tournament games played (184), NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearances (45), NCAA Elite Eight appearances (38), total postseason tournament appearances (68), and conference regular season champions (51, 49 in the Southeastern Conference). So they’ll be back, and soon, but with a very different look.

[Read more…]

Heading into the Georgia Tech game on Dec. 6, Kentucky Wildcats coach John Calipari met the media, via Zoom as we always do in 2020, and he provided a very spirited question and answer session. During several stretches of the press conference, he sounded similar to the professional football coach character portrayed by Al Pacino in the 1999 film “Any Given Sunday.”

“If you’re LAST in the gym, NO ONE follow you,” Calipari said quite loudly. “If you’re FIRST to practice, EVERYONE will follow you.” The literal statement also served on a metaphorical level, but apparently, his team still didn’t get fired up enough.

[Read more…]

Ten is the most relevant number to Kentucky Wildcats basketball right now as it’s both their ranking in the AP preseason poll, and the number of new players coming into the squad this season. The John Calipari era at Kentucky has been all about annual roster turnover, and churning is standard here, but this is next level.

How will it all play out in Lexington? What does the sports betting community think of their chances and their odds this upcoming season? Well, it’s the bluest of the blue blood programs, but they’re not the favorites in 2020-21.

[Read more…]

John Calipari has instilled a sense of “La Familia” in his Kentucky Wildcats program, and all the former UK players that strive and thrive in the NBA. Yes, Calipari’s La Familia may just be the most Italian sounding sentence we’ve ever published here on The Sports Bank.

Writing this article puts me in the mood to pour chianti and consume caprese, with Pavarotti playing in the background of course. Because after all this is a major La Familia, The Family in Italian (ditto en Espanol) evening on the calendar- NBA Draft night.

[Read more…]