Basketball in Kentucky

In the history of American collegiate basketball, Kentucky Basketball team is one of the most respected teams. Referred to as Wild cats (all Kentucky University teams are called thunder cats) after a strong performance against Illinois earning flying colors commendation from Commandant Philip Corbusier, a head of department at Old State University. Because of the monumental success, the name wildcats clung with the media and supporters alike and late it was officially adopted as part of the name. With royal blue and white as its official colors, the club has its home ground in Rupp Arena with capacity of 23,500.  The arena is named after their former coach, Adolph Rupp. The old facility was referred to as ‘the Gymnasium’, and was located in the north wing of Barker Hall on the university campus. Kentucky Basketball has an enviable record. It’s all time win loss record stands at 2060-647 or a 76.1% success record. Wildcats lead the record for most appearance at National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) level and are tied with North Carolina at 105 titles for school level. It ranks second to UCLA in NCAA champions with 7 titles. Kentucky Basketball  team also has the distinction of winning the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) twice in 1946 and 1976. Furthermore, Wildcats are the only institution to have won multiple NCAA and NIT titles. Kentucky is also the only school to have four different title winning coaches (Rupp, Hall, Pitino, and Smith) over the course of its history. The huge fan base and fanatics of Kentucky Basketball are referred to as the ‘Big Blue Nation’ or ‘Big Blue Mist’, mist because of their nature of dominating the crowd throughout the tournaments duration.  The team is also credit with making the ‘Midnight Madness’ a trend of the 80’s.  Kentucky Basketball will always be dominated by the mention of Adolph Rupp. He coached the team from 1930-72 leading the Wild cats to 4 titles. He was forced into retirement when he reached the mandatory age of retirement. Over time Wildcats have had 22 different coaches, in their 106 year history. Six of them have gone on to win national coach of the year title; their current coach is John Calipari. Kentucky Basketball has gone 796 consecutive games with at least one three-point field goal, the third longest such streak. Only UNLV and Vanderbilt have a longer active such streak in men's college basketball.