First, I would like to thank Scott Anderson and the good folks here at Nation of Blue for giving me the opportunity to continue covering my beloved University of Kentucky Wildcats. I’ve been covering the Cats for four years and I look forward to many more here at NOB.
This weekend, the member of the 1995-96 Kentucky Wildcats NCAA title team will meet in Miami for a 20 year reunion of their great season. For my money, that team is the not only the best Wildcat team I’ve ever seen, but the best college basketball team period. I’ve never seen a team so deeply talented, so committed to one another and so focused on defense as that team. Of all the basketball action I’ve witnessed in my 39 years, I’ve never seen anything like the 86 points in the first half the Cats put on LSU in the 129-97 victory down in Baton Rouge.
To the dismay of a lot of the Big Blue Nation, the team was not honored at Rupp Arena this past season, a season marking the 20th anniversary of the 96 Cats. I was personally disappointed because with all anniversaries and reunions, those nice even numbers (10th, 20th, 25th) just make for a great time to stop and remember how good those teams really were. UK AD Mitch Barnhart’s statement that due to Kentucky’s great basketball history, you could end up honoring a team every year and that it may lead to overkill is accurate, but unfulfilling. In 2018 alone, will see anniversaries of the 1998, 78, 58 and 48 title teams.
Of course, when former UK head coach and current UL head man Rick Pitino was asked about the non-reunion, he made it about himself. That shouldn’t be all that unusual as Pitino often makes himself the main character in whatever story, thought or plan he’s currently discussing. In his most recent interview, Pitino opines that the reason that the 1996 UK team was not honored was because the BBN doesn’t like him. And that because Kentucky fans don’t like him that they somehow don’t understand just how good that team was and/or they don’t want to celebrate that team.
Come again?
This narrative of the ungrateful or irrationally hateful Kentucky fans has run its course. Every visitor to Rupp Arena can see the banners (1997 NCAA Runner Up, 1996 NCAA title, 1993 Final Four) that Pitino’s teams put in the rafters. And if you look real close, you can see that Pitino himself has a banner in Rupp Arena along with other great Wildcat coaches. He’s being honored plenty. I’m not sure what Coach Rick Pitino expected when he decided to coach one of Kentucky’s biggest rivals, but the Big Blue Nation isn’t going to be throwing rose petals at his feet or singing his praises every other year when he visits Lexington.
The point is, you can understand the work Rick Pitino put into the Kentucky program, rescuing it from its darkest days and returning it to its standard plate a the top of college basketball, be appreciative of it and still boo the man when he brings his Cardinals to town. He has every right to coach where he wants to coach and the BBN has every right to boo and jeer from the sidelines (within reason, let’s not get crazy, folks).
Rick Pitino coached the best college basketball team I’ve ever seen, the 1995-96 University of Kentucky Wildcats. That team should have been honored at a game in Rupp Arena this past season. While I disagree with the omission, I don’t think it has anything to do with Pitino, no matter how much he wants it to.
