SEC Basketball

The 2014-15 Kentucky Wildcats boasted one of the most dominant teams of all time, posting an undefeated regular season behind a star-studded roster.

But as dominant as it was, Kentucky fell short of its ultimate goal of winning a championship. The Wildcats lost to top-seeded Wisconsin in the Final Four to end their magical run.

Karl-Anthony Towns, a member of that Kentucky team, has gone on to have a successful NBA career, but he admitted the loss still haunts him on a recent appearance on Club Shay Shay.

"That game still hurts. I still haven't watched it, I can't," Towns told Shannon Sharpe (9:30 mark). "It's one of those painful memories that I think we both have as playing as professionals, and I even say in college as well. That game probably hurt the most, and that's something that stuck with me."

For Towns, the thing that stung the most was falling short of his goal in front of his family, who put him in a position to play at the collegiate level.

"What really hurt us the most was, like I said not only seeing each other and understanding this may be the last time we ever play with each other and be able to have this opportunity, but when you have to go home from the arena and see your families in the lobby, it hurt..." Towns said. "Not being able to bring that trophy home for them, I think that really, really hurt."

The 38-1 Wildcats had six players selected in the 2015 NBA draft with four going in the first round. Many of those players have gone on to have fruitful careers like Towns, Devin Booker and Willie Cauley-Stein.

As much NBA success as they have had, the sting of falling short of a championship will always stick with them.

The famed annual preseason Big Blue Madness celebration for the Kentucky men's and women's basketball teams will feature a unique twist this year.

Kentucky announced on Wednesday that Big Blue Madness will be the first college basketball event to be held on ASB GlassFloor, which is an LED video floor that allows for interactive elements. Wildcats men's basketball head coach Mark Pope reacted to the announcement on social media:

Big Blue Madness will tip off on Oct. 11 inside Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center. The event provides fans with an introduction to Kentucky men's and women's basketball teams, both of which have first-year head coaches this season in Pope and Kenny Brooks, respectively.

"We look forward to putting on a show for Big Blue Nation at our first Big Blue Madness with the ASB GlassFloor as part of the spectacle," Brooks said in a release. "Big Blue Madness is famous throughout the college basketball world. Since we saw the ASB GlassFloor at the U19 World Cup last year we've been intrigued by the possibilities playing on this court. We're excited to add this exciting technology to what promises to be an entertaining night in Rupp Arena."

The ASB GlassFloor has previously been used during 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis, the 2024 Basketball Champions League Final and the 2023 FIBA U19 Women's Basketball World Cup. The interactive applications on the court give fans fun new avenues to involve themselves in the event.

Pope, who is replacing longtime head coach John Calipari following his departure for Arkansas, will have an experienced roster for the 2024-25 campaign that features six fifth-year players, one senior, one junior, one sophomore and three freshmen. Calipari's squads were known for their youth with highly-touted freshmen leading the way, so Pope is bringing a new culture to Lexington.

The Kentucky men's basketball team went 23-10 last season and was upset in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. The women's team went 12-20 and missed the tournament for the second straight year.

Jasper Johnson, one of the top guards in the 2025 recruiting class, committed to Kentucky on Thursday.

At 6'4" and 175 pounds, Johnson is a 5-star recruit who is ranked as the No. 2 shooting guard and No. 10 overall player in the 2025 class, per 247Sports' Composite rankings. He decided between Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and Louisville on Thursday.

Johnson also received offers from Illinois, Indiana, Memphis, Kansas and West Virginia.

The Kentucky native already had multiple connections to the Wildcats before making his decision as his father, Dennis, was previously a defensive lineman at the school. His uncle was also a former Wildcat.

Johnson visited the school on Feb. 9 and returned to Kentucky's campus in July after Mark Pope was hired as the team's new head coach.

The 18-year-old enjoyed meeting Pope.

"I liked it a lot," Johnson said, per Jack Pilgrim of On3.com. "Pope gave me a message that he really is prioritizing me and he wants to coach me. I really liked seeing their offense in practice, seeing a lot of new faces. They've got a whole new team. I'll be very interested to see how they do this season, but I really enjoyed my visit."

He's able to use his 6'8" wingspan to create his own looks off the dribble and has also thrived as a catch-and-shoot option. During his junior season at Link Academy, he connected on 41 percent of his three-point attempts (via 247Sports' Adam Finkelstein).

Johnson recently averaged 10 points per game while shooting 51.1 percent from the field and 42.3 percent from behind the arc for the United States during the FIBA U18 AmeriCup in June, winning a gold medal.

He joins center Malachi Moreno in Kentucky's incoming 2025 class following his decision.

The Southeastern Conference is taking a stand on injury management.

Brandon Marcello of CBS Sports reported that the conference approved injury reports for conference games in football, men's basketball and women's basketball. For football, the reports "must be filed by Wednesday of game week."

Pete Nakos of On3 reported that teams will designate players as available, probable, questionable or doubtful prior to game day and they can be updated to available, game-time decision or out on game day.

The Big Ten and Mid-American Conferences had already instituted injury report rules.

The changes will allow fans to have more information in regards to who will be suiting up for future games. With the growth of sports betting, this could be vital.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey acknowledged this in July when the injury reports were being considered, saying that the money involved in sports betting means that information needs to be managed responsibly.

"When you start to see the number of dollars being bet on legalized sports gambling around college sports, not just football, but men's and women's basketball, volleyball and baseball and softball, all those catch your attention," Sankey said, per Nakos. "We have to be thoughtful about how information is managed."

The conference revealed that inaccurate reports in football will result in fines between $25,000-$100,000, while other sports will carry fines ranging from $15,000-$25,000.

John Calipari's return date to Kentucky is set.

The former Wildcats' head coach will lead his new team, Arkansas, into Rupp Arena on Feb. 1. The team announced its SEC schedule on Tuesday:

Calipari left Kentucky this offseason after 15 seasons with the team.

His time in Lexington was a major success. Under his watch, the Wildcats won six SEC regular season championships, six conference championships, reached the NCAA tournament 12 times, the Final Four four times and won a national championship.

But his tenure had seemingly grown stale. Kentucky hasn't gotten past the first weekend of the NCAA tournament since the 2018-19 season and hasn't reached a Final Four since the 2014-15 campaign. Calipari opted against embracing the transfer portal, instead going with young, inexperienced rosters. The fanbase grew frustrated.

So Calipari chose to walk away, taking an Arkansas job that will come with plenty of resources but won't carry the same weight of expectation he had at Kentucky.

"I'm not going to try to get spiritual," he told Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports in May. "Something nudges you and you don't know what it is. But I've been there [at Kentucky] 15 years. Maybe it's, 'You've done what I needed you to do there for the kids, for the state. Now I need you to do something down there [at Arkansas].'"

His flair for recruiting has already impacted the Razorbacks, as Calipari secured the commitment of 5-star point guard Darius Acuff Jr., the No. 4 overall recruit in the Class of 2025. For the 2024 season, he had to rely on the transfer portal to fill out Arkansas' roster, notably bringing Zvonimir Ivišić, Adou Thiero and D.J. Wagner with him from Kentucky.

Like Calipari, they'll return to Rupp Arena on Feb. 1. It should be quite the environment.

Four-star center prospect Malachi Moreno has committed to Kentucky, he told On3's Joe Tipton.

Moreno was previously considering joining former Kentucky head coach John Calipari at Arkansas. Iowa, Indiana, Ohio State, Louisville, UNC, and Notre Dame were his other top choices.

The Georgetown, Kentucky local said he chose the Wildcats because of head coach Mark Pope's playing style, per ESPN's Paul Biancardi.

Moreno is ranked as the No. 2 center and the No. 26 overall prospect in the class of 2025, according to 247Sports' composite rankings.

Moreno announced his commitment in an event at his high school, which was streamed live by 247Sports.

Moreno told Tipton that he would compare his own playing style to NBA bigs like Anthony Davis or Karl Anthony-Towns.

"I would describe my game as a stretch-five. I can pass, shoot, and dribble the ball," Moreno told Tipton.

The commitment means Moreno, who was born and raised in Kentucky, can remain near his hometown. Moreno currently plays for Great Crossing High School, which is located just a half hour's drive away from Pope's program in Lexington.

Calipari began recruiting Moreno during his final season as Kentucky, and Pope continued those efforts after taking over the job in April, Cameron Drummond reported for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Moreno's decision marks the first commitment from a class of 2025 player for Pope. Pope has also added two class of 2024 prospects in forward Trent Noah and guard Travis Perry, both of whom are also in-state locals.

Moreno's brother, Michael Moreno, recently finished out his five-year college basketball career at Eastern Kentucky. He finished the 2023-24 season as the only EKU player to record 1,500 career points and 900 rebounds.

Pope will now hope to add another high-profile recruit as Kentucky continues the program's pursuit five-star guard prospect Jasper Johnson. That might be a longshot for the Wildcats, as Johnson listed Kentucky as one of his final contenders in July but said in August he had the program ranked as a "distant third" behind Alabama and UNC.

Darius Acuff Jr., a 5-star point guard from the class of 2025, has committed to play for head coach John Calipari and the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Acuff, who announced his commitment live on 247Sports Friday, chose Arkansas over Michigan and Kansas.

The IMG Academy product ranks eighth on the 247Sports Composite list of class of 2025 prospects and first overall among point guards.

Adam Finkelstein, 247Sports' director of scouting, called Acuff "the most dominant and dynamic lead guard in the class."

Adding him is another big win for Calipari, who already built the Razorbacks' No. 3 class of 2024 (per 247Sports) thanks to three top-26 recruits (Boogie Fland, Karter Knox and Billy Richmond) as well as big-time transfers such as DJ Wagner and Johnell Davis.

As for why Acuff liked Arkansas, he cited Calipari and his ability to coach guards into the NBA (e.g. Derrick Rose, John Wall, Devin Booker, Jamal Murray, etc.) during an interview with On3, per Joe Tipton.

"Coach Calipari treats you like family. He welcomed me in on my visit like he knew me already. It was a great visit overall…They like my aggressiveness. He says he likes how I am able to get downhill, my pace, and my attitude for the game. They see that I just love the game so much and I just want to win.

"Just how (Calipari) coaches his guards. All his guards go to the league. You see it every year. Also, his resume speaks for itself. He's one of the winningest coaches ever. He's a great coach, a guard coach, if not the best."

And now Calipari will be his coach in 2025 as Acuff, who is part of a fantastic class of 2025 that also includes headliner Cooper Flagg, Ace Bailey, Dylan Harper and many other standouts, carves his own post-high school path.

Arkansas men's basketball head coach John Calipari said he had previously been pursued by the Razorbacks when he was coaching Memphis to the Final Four in 2007.

"At that time, Dan, if I left, I left players," Calipari told Dan Patrick Wednesday on the Dan Patrick Show (3:25 mark.) "Like, they were there. And if my assistant wasn't going to get the job, I wasn't comfortable just leaving."

A conversation with Houston men's basketball head coach Kelvin Sampson made Calipari realize the outlook for leaving Kentucky after 15 seasons would be different.

Calipari said he told Sampson this spring that he was "having a hard time, because I'm going to end up leaving players."

"Kelvin went crazy," Calipari recalled. "'What? If you leave, they can leave. They can go where they want. They can go with you. They can go pro. What are you talking about? This isn't 10 years ago.'

"Then he said the one that got me: 'And if you stay, they can leave. They can go somewhere else. They can go pro. This is different.' And you know what? That got me to thinking a different way. And within 36 hours, I said, 'You know what? I want this new challenge... I want to bring something to that state, and that program, that explodes this state.'"

Calipari was named the new head coach at Arkansas in April.

Since then, three four-star members of Kentucky's 2024 recruiting class in Billy Richmond, Karter Knox and Boogie Fland switched their commitments to Arkansas. Zvonimir Ivišić, who played his freshman season at Kentucky, also decided to follow Calipari to join the Razorbacks

Calipari will now hope to build a roster, likely centered on the players who followed him to Fayetteville, that can take Arkansas back to the NCAA Tournament after missing out on a bid this year.

Florida men's basketball commit Olivier Rioux has grown to 7'9", per the team's official website, extending his own Guinness World Record as the tallest teenager in the world.

Rioux, who is from Montreal, played high school ball at IMG Academy in Florida before committing to the Gators.

Per Florida's official men's basketball website, Rioux was 6'1" at eight years old, 6'11" in the sixth grade and passed seven feet prior to the seventh grade.

At the age of 16, Rioux was just over 7'5" and already in the Guinness World Record book as the tallest teenager.

The Rioux family is quite tall, with his father standing at 6'8", his mother at 6'2" and his older brother at 6'9".

Rioux has apparently kept growing, however. He was 7'7" not too long ago, but the roster update confirms an even greater height.

247Sports lists him as a 3-star prospect. Travis Branham, 247Sports basketball analyst, gave this scouting report last November, when Rioux was 7'6".

"Olivier Rioux is a 7'6" center that takes up immense space on the floor but isn't the most fleet of foot. In short minutes, Rioux can come into a game to clog the paint, shield opponents away from the rim and be a serviceable rebounder.He does have pretty good hands and touch on the offensive side of the ball but will need to continue developing his coordination especially in quick reaction circumstances."

Now Rioux will play Division I ball for Florida, which won 24 games and reached the SEC tournament final before falling to Colorado 103-100 in the first round of the NCAA tournament.