Kentucky basketball fans are guaranteed some unique treats in 2024-25

As these words are written, we are exactly one week from tip off of the 2024-25 NCAA college basketball season in Kentucky.

If, like me, you relish the commonwealth’s rich hoops lore, the coming season should be a treat. There may never have been a season more certain to produce Kentucky college hoops history than 2024-25 will.

Consider:

▪ This season, Kentucky (Mark Pope), Louisville (Pat Kelsey) and Western Kentucky (Hank Plona) will all have new head men’s basketball coaches.

In all of college hoops history, those three tradition-rich schools have never before all had new coaches in the same season.

▪ With Morehead State breaking in its own new men’s hoops head man in Jonathan Mattox, that means four of Kentucky’s NCAA Division I men’s basketball programs (see above) will be under new leadership in 2024-25.

There has never before been four first-year head men leading Kentucky NCAA Division I men’s hoops teams in the same season.

▪ The 2024-25 campaign will be the first time that both UK and U of L have had new men’s head hoops coaches in the same season in 99 years.

In 1925-26, first-year Kentucky coach Ray Eklund went 15-3, while new Louisville head man Tom King finished 4-8.

▪ Both Pope at UK and Kelsey at U of L landed their new jobs without having ever won a Division I NCAA Tournament game as a head man.

That means 2024-25 will be the first season that neither UK nor U of L — one or the other — will employ a coach with at least one NCAA Tournament victory since Kentucky’s Adolph Rupp won his first such contest on March 20, 1942.

▪ That 1941-42 season was when Rupp coached Kentucky to its first Final Four. The coming season will be the first time in all the years since that neither UK nor U of L — one or the other — will employ a men’s hoops head coach with at least one Final Four on his resume.

▪ On March 27, 1978, Joe B. Hall directed Kentucky to its fifth men’s NCAA Tournament championship. The coming season will the first time in all the years since that neither UK nor U of L — one or the other — will employ a men’s hoops head coach with an NCAA title on his resume.

From 1978-79 through the end of last season, some combination of Hall, Louisville’s Denny Crum, UK and U of L’s Rick Pitino and Kentucky’s Tubby Smith and John Calipari ensured there was always an NCAA championship-winning coach at work in the commonwealth.

▪ With Pope in his first year as UK men’s hoops coach and Kenny Brooks the new Kentucky women’s basketball head man, 2024-25 will be the second time in modern history (since the adoption of Title IX brought back women’s college basketball) that the Wildcats have had two new head basketball coaches in the same year.

The other time was 2007-08, when Billy Gillispie (men) and Matthew Mitchell (women) both began coaching at UK.

▪ Having finally completed the NCAA-mandated four-year transition from Division II to Division I, Bellarmine men’s and women’s basketball are eligible to compete in the D-I NCAA tourney for the first time in 2024-25.

That also means that, for the first time in our state’s history, there are eight Kentucky universities seeking to earn bids to the 2025 men’s and women’s NCAA Division I basketball tournaments.

Those eight schools — Bellarmine (ASUN), Eastern Kentucky (ASUN), Kentucky (SEC), Louisville (ACC), Morehead State (OVC), Murray State (Missouri Valley), Northern Kentucky (Horizon League) and Western Kentucky (C-USA) — combine to compete in seven different leagues.

So, in theory, our state could send as many as seven different teams to the 2025 NCAA Tournament (it seems unrealistic that the ASUN could be a two-bid league, so the commonwealth probably cannot aspire to send eight teams to this season’s NCAA Tournament).

As is, the existing “state record” for number of men’s teams from Kentucky in the Division I NCAA Tournament in the same year is four done three different times — in 1995 (UK, U of L, Murray and WKU), 2012 (UK, U of L, Murray and WKU) and 2019 (UK, U of L, Murray and NKU).

▪ The 2024-25 season will begin with the commonwealth still riding a remarkable streak. The relatively small state of Kentucky has put at least one team in the last 60 men’s NCAA Tournaments that have been played.

The last time there was a men’s NCAA Tournament without a team from Kentucky in the field came when John F. Kennedy lived in the White House in March 1963.

Almost as impressive as the streak, there have been multiple teams from Kentucky in the men’s NCAA tourney fields in 50 of the past 60 tournaments.

In what is guaranteed to be a historic 2024-25 college hoops season in our state, job one for the commonwealth’s men’s hoops coaches is keeping alive the streak that is Kentucky’s greatest basketball achievement.

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