Southern Hoops: A History of SEC Basketball (2023)

Adolph Rupp got here to the University of Kentucky in 1930 – a 29-year-old who took courses on the University of Kansas from James Naismith, the inventor of basketball. Two years later, the SEC was shaped, and Rupp’s Wildcats would dominate play within the convention for many years. Meanwhile, a future teaching legend was born in Clarksville, Tenn. It was years earlier than Pat Summitt grew to become a family identify however the early years of her journey foretold extraordinary promise.

As the South was reworked by the civil rights motion within the Sixties, so too was the SEC. Texas Western’s historic win with an all-Black beginning 5 over Coach Rupp’s all-white Kentucky Wildcats within the 1966 NCAA last marked a turning level for basketball within the SEC. Vanderbilt’s Perry Wallace then grew to become the convention’s first Black participant, main the best way for pioneers who would journey a tough street to historical past. Down in Baton Rouge at LSU, Pete Maravich usual one of probably the most extraordinary school basketball careers of all time. In 1970, one other transformative SEC basketball determine in Dawn Staley was born in Philadelphia.

The Seventies delivered a brand new era of groundbreaking fixtures to the SEC. Dale Brown, a North Dakota native, introduced an infectious character and ferocious competitiveness to LSU males’s basketball. In 1974, the incomparable Pat Summitt started her legendary teaching profession at Tennessee on the age of simply 22. Meanwhile, the yr after the demise of Coach Rupp in 1977, his successor Joe B. Hall and a pair of native Lexington stars led the Kentucky Wildcats staff to a memorable nationwide title, this system’s first in 20 years.

There might not have been two extra entertaining and electrifying gamers within the SEC than Georgia’s Dominique Wilkins and Auburn’s Charles Barkley. The duo headlined the convention’s successes within the early Eighties, whereas LSU’s Coach Brown took two groups to the Men’s Final Four. Coach Summitt received her first nationwide titles with the Lady Vols in 1987 and 1989. Tennessee was pushed by an rising energy in Georgia beneath head coach Andy Landers, in addition to a robust Auburn program led by coach Joe Ciampi that made it to 3 straight NCAA title video games. The Lady Vols defeated the Tigers for the 1989 championship.

In 1991 and 1992, a younger Dawn Staley was ending up a stellar school basketball profession – incomes Naismith College Player of the Year honors in her junior and senior seasons – even assembly Coach Summitt’s Lady Vols within the 1991 NCAA title recreation. Meanwhile Arkansas joined the SEC and the Razorbacks immediately grew to become one of the convention’s prime males’s groups, led by their fearless, fiery coach Nolan Richardson and his “40 Minutes of Hell” assault. Arkansas received an NCAA championship in 1994, whereas Kentucky returned to prominence beneath Rick Pitino, who led the Wildcats to a nationwide title in 1996 in a Men’s Final Four that included a stunning Mississippi State staff. Back in Knoxville, Coach Summitt loved her biggest decade at Tennessee, profitable three consecutive nationwide championships from 1996 to 1998.

Kentucky entered a brand new century led by their first Black head coach, Tubby Smith, who had taken the Wildcats to the nationwide championship in his first season in 1998. Later within the decade, Florida’s back-to-back titles in 2006 and 2007 beneath coach Billy Donovan marked the rise of a brand new energy within the SEC. Coach Summitt and famous person Candace Parker led the Lady Vols to their very own set of consecutive nationwide championships in 2007 and 2008. And down in Baton Rouge, two memorable figures cemented their legacies. Three of LSU’s 5 straight Women’s Final Four appearances had been fueled by two-time Naismith College Player of the Year Seimone Augustus, with the final one coming beneath the helm of former Ole Miss coach Van Chancellor. On the lads’s facet, tenacious guard Garrett Temple, the son of the primary Black basketball participant for the Tigers, helped take LSU to the Men’s Final Four in 2006.

The previous decade has seen the expanded SEC proceed to thrive on the heart of the story of school basketball in America. John Calipari has continued the custom of excellence at Kentucky, main the Wildcats to 4 Men’s Final Four appearances together with a nationwide championship in 2012. That similar yr, Missouri and Texas A&M joined the convention, a season after head coach Gary Blair led the Aggies to the Women’s Final Four and a nationwide title. In 2016, the basketball world mentioned goodbye to at least one of its biggest legends with the loss of Pat Summitt after a five-year battle with early-onset Alzheimer’s illness. In 2017, Vic Schaefer led Mississippi State to the primary of two consecutive nationwide title video games after knocking off top-ranked and undefeated UConn within the semifinals, earlier than falling to Dawn Staley’s South Carolina Gamecocks led by A’ja Wilson. It was the primary NCAA championship for Coach Staley, with the second title...