Tubby Smith makes appearance at Kentucky practice inside Rupp Arena
Kentucky debuted inside Rupp Arena with a practice on Friday morning. It was even more special for the program, though, considering the special guest in attendance to watch earlier today.
Tubby Smith, who coached there for a decade from the mid-90s to mid-2000s, stopped by practice this a.m. with the Wildcats. In doing so, he also got to break the huddle down once their morning on the court was over .
Smith is just the latest bit of nostalgia going around Kentucky this offseason ahead of the school’s first season under Mark Pope, a former player himself. The most notable has been the reemergence of Rick Pitino, who Smith took over for in 1997. It also includes other guests and visitors such as Jack Givens as well as Cameron Mills.
In 10 years leading the blue and white, Smith went 263-83 (.760). That represented the best winning percentage of his 30-plus year career as a head coach at seven stops. That record included a dozen conference titles and an appearance in every season in the NCAA Tournament. Those berths in March Madness featured six Sweet 16s, four Elite Eights, and a national title in his debut season as the Wildcats went 35-4 in 1998.
In that span, Tubby was three times apiece both the SEC Coach of the Year and National Coach of the Year.
Smith has been honored several times over this past decade in Lexington. That started with his induction into the UK Athletics Hall of Fame in 2013 and then his jersey retirement in 2021 where he, as one of 44 names hanging in the rafters at Rupp, joined Pitino along with Adolph Rupp and Joe B. Hall. He most recently was a 2024 SEC Legend at this last SEC Tournament.
Kentucky has been undergoing a full-on revival over the past few months ahead of Pope’s first season. That continued to today with Smith back in the bluegrass and the building to end this week.
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Kentucky announces non-conference schedule for 2024-25
Kentucky is preparing for their first season under Mark Pope. That includes the very start of it with a non-conference schedule that the program has now announced.
The Wildcats shared the 13-game portion of their schedule on Thursday. It includes some known events that they were set to take part in anyways along with some standalone matchups and events that are officially on the slate.
From there, Kentucky will play a conference schedule of 18 games in the SEC. They will play Tennessee, Alabama, and Vanderbilt both home and away. Their home schedule will most notably include Arkansas along with Auburn, Florida, LSU, South Carolina, and Texas A&M. Then, on the road, they will go to Georgia, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas.
Tip-off can’t come soon enough for many in the bluegrass who are ready to start this new tenure. They now have some dates for it too as they have the first portion of their schedule to look at in Lexington.