KSR's Top Moments of 2024

2024 was an eventful, tumultuous year for UK Athletics. Mitch Barnhart hired two basketball coaches before the football team faltered. Sandwiched in-between the chaos was the best Kentucky baseball season in school history. As the calendar turns to 2025, the KSR crew is looking back on the best moments from the last 12 months.

The Justin Edwards Game vs. Alabama (Feb. 24)

This sure is an odd game to look back on, huh? It was the game John Calipari promised us was coming eventually: Justin Edwards’s breakout performance. And it finally happened at Rupp Arena against a Top 15 Alabama squad. After losing by one point against LSU in the previous game, this truly was one of the best home atmospheres of that entire season. The fanbase needed a feel-good win. Edwards delivered.

Edwards played, without a doubt, his best game of the season. The future one-and-done scored a career-high 28 points while making all 10 of his shot attempts, including a 4-4 mark from long range. Kentucky absolutely smashed the Crimson Tide by 22 points, 117-95, and even led by as many as 37. Antonio Reeves dropped 24 points. Zvonimir Ivisic went for his own career-high of 18 points. Rupp Arena was having fun.

In a season that certainly wasn’t always easy for Edwards (or his entire team, for that matter), he deserved to have his moment at least once.

— Zack Geoghegan

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Reed Sheppard’s game-winner in Starkville (Feb. 27)

Laurel County’s finest had already become a household name at that point, but no individual performance was greater all season than what Reed Sheppard did in Starkville. Coming off Edwards’ brilliant showing against the Crimson Tide, Sheppard managed to one-up him just a few days later, going for a career-high 32 points on a blistering 11-14 shooting overall and 4-7 from three while adding seven assists, five rebounds, two steals and two blocks — and, again, he did it all off the bench.

Going blow for blow with Josh Hubbard all 40 minutes, who finished with 34 points himself (albeit on 24 shots), Sheppard got the final haymaker in the form of a 15-foot game-winning floater down the lane with 0.5 seconds to go.

The rim felt a mile wide for the superstar freshman and there was nothing Mississippi State could do about it, no matter how hard Hubbard tried in his own heroic effort. Sheppard became the all-time leading scorer among Wildcat freshmen from Kentucky, passing Goose Givens and Rex Chapman (26).

— Jack Pilgrim

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Reed and Reeves Kick Top-5 Tennessee’s Ass (March 9)

Normally the frequency of F-bombs in a game is a bad sign. That was not the case for this game. Every time Reed Sheppard pulled up, the entire Tennessee team got some sort of “F-U” from myself, who was standing approximately 3-feet away from the television screen. I’d like to be profane here once again, but this is a family website.

It’s so easy to hate those losers from Tennessee. They actually thought they were better than Kentucky. It didn’t matter if Dalton Knecht had 40 points, a kid from the 13th Region was better. Sheppard knocked down seven three-pointers to score 27 points. Antonio Reeves chipped in 27 more as Kentucky absolutely blitzed the fifth-ranked Vols in their own house. The Cats never trailed, and led by double-digits on multiple occasions en route to an 85-81 victory. It was a glorious win for Kentucky fans, but unfortunately it was the last one of the season and the last of the John Calipari era.

— Nick Roush

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Mark Pope’s Introductory Presser (April 14)

It was the day Kentucky got its program back, Mark Pope’s hire met with initial skepticism before an all-time rallying cry, Big Blue Nation selling out Rupp Arena with thousands of fans turned away at the door looking to show support. That’s where the former BYU coach made it clear he understood the assignment, embracing championship expectations and demands in Lexington while stressing the importance of every game — exhibition, regular season, conference tournament and the NCAA tournament — not just those in March.

And it would take all of us to get back there with administration, coaches, players and fans all coming together in pursuit of that one common goal.

“The difference between Kentucky and every other program in the country is that this is not my team. It is not even our team. It is our team,” Pope said that day.

It was an afternoon we’ll never forget for the rest of our lives. Watching fans pour in after waiting hours outside with the line wrapped around the building, slowly filling each section one at a time from the lower bowl to the upper until there were none left to fill was something out of a BBN fan fiction. Kentucky sold out a freaking press conference to introduce a basketball coach. Nobody will ever be able to replicate that moment and they certainly won’t be able to top it. It was a one of one day entirely unique to Big Blue Nation.

— Jack Pilgrim

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A Walk-Off College World Series Win (June 15)

The most memorable Kentucky baseball season ended with an exclamation point. While the lasting image of this team very may well be Nolan McCarthy’s headfirst dive to win the Super Regional, what happened next was somehow even more dramatic.

Playing the College World Series for the very first time, Kentucky trailed for the first time in the NCAA Tournament after blowing a 3-1 lead. Hope was in short supply in the bottom of the nine. The Cats needed one run to keep the game alive, and the big lefty Ryan Nicholson delivered a big blue bomb. Mitchell Daly delivered one more home run in the tenth to complete the improbable walk-off win.

The shot heard ‘round the Commonwealth #WeAreUK x #MCWS pic.twitter.com/dFMpn7YwXR

— Kentucky Baseball (@UKBaseball) June 15, 2024

It was a game where you couldn’t leave your TV, even when things weren’t looking great, and then you spent the whole night talking about it. Instead of asking people in the Churchill Downs’ paddock which horse they were picking, I was asking, “Did you see that game? HOLY —-!”

— Nick Roush

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La Familia vs. The Ville in TBT (July 29)

Are we absolutely sure this game happened? I was there on the court after Chinanu Onuaku spit on Nate Sestina and a random Louisville fan punched Drew Franklin in the chest. I remember every second of it, we did a Rapid Reaction right there on the middle of the floor with chaos all around us, and yet it still feels like a fever dream. We didn’t know it at the time, but the basketball version of this rivalry was officially back.

It was the biggest matchup in The Basketball Tournament history — both figuratively and literally. Over 13,000 fans showed up to Freedom Hall, easily breaking the event record for the most attended TBT game. Both teams clearly did not like each other. It quickly showed on the floor. There was a double technical foul between Andrew Harrison and Chris Jones. La Familia led for most of the game, but The Ville always kept it close.

Until Sestina caught fire in the third quarter, nailing five triples to give the Kentucky alums a huge edge. Go Big Blue chants rained down from the split crowd. Harrison hit the Elam Ending shot to secure the win, sending La Familia to the semifinals. It immediately got ugly from there with the now-infamous near brawl that all started because of a loogie. It was awesome in every single way.

— Zack Geoghegan

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Kentucky Blue takes over the Paris Olympics (Late July to Mid-August)

The summer fun continued in Paris, where a school-record 11 Kentucky Wildcats won 13 medals at the Summer Olympics: nine gold, two silver, and two bronze. If you go by Olympic rules and count team medals as one, UK’s 10 medals would rank 21st among the participating nations, and the six golds would rank 14th.

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone continued to dominate the 400m hurdles, one of three former Kentucky track stars to bring home gold. Bam Adebayo, Devin Booker, and Anthony Davis helped lead Team USA to another gold medal, while Rhyne Howard took home bronze in 3×3 basketball. Avery Skinner was spectacular in her Olympic debut, winning a silver medal with Team USA, and Lexington native and UK medical school student Lee Kiefer won gold again in fencing in the individual and team foil events. Many of those athletes were celebrated by the school during football games this fall. It already has me thinking about the Los Angeles games in 2028.

— Tyler Thompson

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Kentucky shocks No. 6 Ole Miss (Sept. 28)

There was a worry that the Kentucky football season would turn into an absolute disaster after stunning blowout loss at home to South Carolina in Week 2. The season would soon get off the rails with another shocking home loss to Vanderbilt but the Wildcats did deliver one of the best wins of the Mark Stoops era in Week 5.

Ole Miss was undefeated and riding high with the top offense in college football. Kentucky’s defense delivered a gem and befuddled Lane Kiffin’s offense most of the afternoon in Oxford thanks to a dominant performance by the defensive front. A fourth down completion from Brock Vandagriff to Barion Brown in the fourth quarter got Kentucky in scoring position and a Josh Kattus fumble recovery in the endzone was the last score of the game.

Ole Miss missed a long field goal attempt late and Kentucky fans roared at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. For a couple of weeks, the Big Blue Nation could envision a strong close to the season after the shocking road win as a double-digit dog.

— Adam Luckett

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Rick Pitino returns for Big Blue Madness (Oct. 11)

The Rupp Arena floor was turned into a videoboard and the Big Blue Nation roared as Mark Pope and Kenny Brooks went through their first Big Blue Madness. There was even a national championship trophy parade once the men’s team finished a scrimmage. But this year’s version of the yearly basketball extravaganza will be remembered for Rick Pitino being welcomed back.

A standing ovation along with a speech where Pitino again dropped the Camelot comparison followed after the former head coach walked out on the floor surrounded by former players. We even got a KSR interview with the St. John’s head coach the next day. The former Louisville head coach rocked Kentucky blue all weekend long and showed up at Kroger Field the next night when Kentucky hosted Vanderbilt.

— Adam Luckett

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Kentucky’s win over Duke in the Champions Classic (Nov. 12)

Ohio State loss aside, the early days of the Mark Pope era have felt like a dream. The highest high thus far is Kentucky’s win over Duke in the Champions Classic. The Cats had lost six of the last seven games in the event, including two to the Blue Devils. Because it was just the third game of Pope’s first season, a loss to a very good Duke team with several future pros would been completely understandable. That’s why it was so awesome when the Cats stormed back from a nine-point halftime deficit to win 77-72.

It was the first signature win of the Mark Pope era and signaled to the rest of college basketball that Kentucky is doing just fine without John Calipari. A lot of people have said that the program is getting its soul back under Pope; beating Duke is a huge part of that.

— Tyler Thompson

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Kenny Brooks brings back Kentucky-Louisville WBB rivalry (Nov. 18)

Because it certainly hadn’t felt like a true rivalry over the last several years. Louisville head coach Jeff Walz had both Matthew Mitchell and Kyra Elzy figured out. Kentucky had lost seven in a row against the Cardinals until Kenny Brooks took charge. He needed just one game to get the Wildcats back on top.

And it was an awesome atmosphere too. Both teams were ranked inside the Top 20. A renovated Memorial Coliseum was jam-packed for the first time (and I was dumb enough to wait until the last second for tickets, so I didn’t attend this thriller). It went into overtime. It was a slugfest. Every possession was critical, especially in the fourth quarter. But Kentucky dominated the extra period and won by 10 points, 81-71.

It was the game we knew we had something potentially special in Teonni Key, who dropped a career-high 17 points to go along with nine rebounds and five blocks. Georgia Amoore went for 19 points and nine assists. It felt like neither team shot the ball well, but Kentucky found a way to pull out the win. It was the first statement win of the Brooks era.

— Zack Geoghegan

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Kentucky makes historic halftime comeback to beat Gonzaga (Dec. 7)

The Wildcats couldn’t have dug a bigger hole if they tried, trailing Gonzaga by 16 at halftime, then 18 in the opening minutes of the second half. Kentucky didn’t look like it belonged on the same floor and Mark Few was coaching circles around Mark Pope, then it managed to put together the biggest halftime comeback in school history. And it came against a program that hadn’t lost in 175 tries when leading by double figures at the break.

Jaxson Robinson was the catalyst, scoring 15 points on 6-7 shooting in the second half and overtime combined, including the go-ahead bucket with 14 seconds to go. Andrew Carr had a special night, too, finishing with a team-high 19 points on 8-12 shooting while adding seven rebounds, three assists and a block. The biggest difference? Pope’s zone wrinkle when the Cats seemed to be dead in the water, turning a 17-point deficit at the 18:18 mark into four in a matter of minutes with the lead never extending past six for the remainder of regulation — a whole new ballgame.

Back within striking distance, Kentucky converted to make history and give Pope his second statement win of the season and his time in Lexington.

— Jack Pilgrim

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The Kentucky-Louisville Rivalry is Back (Dec. 14)

There have certainly been better wins, but there’s just something about this game against Louisville that felt right. The biggest problem with this rivalry is that it is far too one-sided. Sure, Louisville lost again, like they always do, but in recent years the Cards entered the game without a pulse. This one felt different.

For the first time in the storied rivalry’s history, each team had a new coach on the sideline. Tensions were high in a packed Rupp Arena. Even though Kentucky led by a dozen points early on, Louisville kept hitting shot after shot after shot. The Cards knocked down 14 three-pointers, but never got closer than three as Kentucky shot 58% from the field in a 93-85 win.

It was a wildly entertaining, high-level basketball game. That has not been the case over the last few years. I watched it with about two dozen others, mixing and matching with Kentucky and Louisville fans. It felt like the rivalry I grew up with and it feels oh so good to be back.

— Nick Roush

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