The University of Kentucky basketball schedule has a history that rivals that of any college in any seminar in America. The Kentucky Wildcats, placed in Lexington, Kentucky, boast at the top of their resume the most wins in college basketball history. An arguably even more foremost article held by the University of Kentucky basketball schedule is the high water mark for the most winning percentage of all time. Among the other famous accomplishments in the hundred plus year history of Kentucky basketball are seven national championships (second only to Ucla) and 98 Ncaa Tournament wins (second to Unc).
The Kentucky schedule has had enviable success in every decade of an existence that started with an inauspicious beginning when the inaugural 1903 season was completed with a dismal 1-2 record, the lone win advent against the Lexington Ymca. Underwhelming success for the upstart schedule nearly resulted in the basketball squad ceasing to exist past the first decade of the twentieth century. With a cumulative article of 15 and 29 after the 1908 season the university administration voted in 1909 to dismantle the program. Fortunately the trainee body rallied to save the team and effectively what would finally come to be the culture of the University of Kentucky.
The first paid head basketball coach at the University of Kentucky was a man by the name of E.R. Sweetland who also concurrently coached the football team. Under coach Sweetland the hereafter powerhouse experienced its first taste of success with its first winning season (5-4) in 1909 and an impressive undefeated season (9-0) in 1912. It was while this era that the nickname Wildcats was first attached to the university. Commandant Corbusier, head of the school's troops department, is credited with coining the term after commenting that in a victory over the University of Illinois the Kentucky squad "fought like Wildcats." The nickname stuck and to this day college basketball fans nearby the world know the University of Kentucky team as the Wildcats.
New coach George Buchheit took over the schedule in 1919 and instituted a bizarre principles by modern day standards whereby one player from his team remained under each basket for the entirety of each game. After coach Buchheit a number of coaches preceded the famed Coach Adolph Rupp together with C.O. Applegran, Ray Eklund, Basil Hayden, and John Mauer. Maur is singular fine for installing what were at the time novelty nasty components that included screens set away from the ball and the deceptive bounce pass. Opposing teams were so thrown off by the ingenuity of the bounce pass that they referred to the dizzying floor maneuvers naturally as the "submarine attack."
Kentucky basketball turned a requisite corner with the 1930 hiring of Adolph Rupp who would hold the position of head coach for an awe-inspiring forty two years between 1930 and 1972. Coach Rupp experienced such success and national acclaim while his tenure that when the University of Kentucky occasion a new stadium in 1976 the faculty prime Rupp Arena as the name of the 23,500 seat home for the Wildcats.
Although Coach Rupp was a tough act to follow he did cement the groundwork for successful Kentucky teams in the decades following his retirement. Among the high profile coaches that have tried their best to fill his shoes are famous names such as Joe Hall, Eddie Sutton, Rick Pitino, Tubby Smith, briefly Billy Gillispie, and current head coach John Calipari who at the time of this writing has the Kentucky Wildcats in position to fight for their eighth Ncaa national championship. Regardless of whether Coach Calipari wins a basketball national championship at the University Kentucky the one thing that history has taught us is that the quest for an elusive eighth championship is not a matter of if it will happen, but rather when will it happen.
