By Ashley Scoby
Special to NKyTribune
In the midst of the best start to a Kentucky basketball season in history, let’s pause, and appreciate the past.
That will be the goal, at least for a few minutes, on Saturday when former Kentucky star Tony Delk will have his jersey retired before the Wildcats’ 7 p.m. tipoff against Auburn.
Delk is best known for his spot on the 1996 championship team, long considered one of the most talent-rich squads that Kentucky basketball has ever had. But his consistency is what makes him worthy of that jersey retirement ceremony Saturday. Leading the Wildcats in scoring for three straight years, Delk ranks fifth all time at Kentucky in scoring, with 1,890 points. He is also first all-time in career three-pointers (283) and second in career steals (201).
If Delk was consistently a reliable scoring threat, then he certainly had a lot to fall back on when he wasn’t. The teams he played for at Kentucky (1993-96) put together two Final Four appearances, one national championship (’96), two SEC championships and three SEC Tournament championships.
Individual stats? Delk had them. But the team success that he enjoyed in Lexington is something that the current crop of Wildcats can certainly learn from while Delk is being honored this weekend.
Current head coach John Calipari has always been the kind of head coach to teach his players what the bigger picture looks like, and having Delk in town for his jersey retirement ceremony will be a perfect opportunity to have his current team learn from someone who has enjoyed the kind of success they’re hoping for. Delk lost in a Final Four, then won a national championship during his senior year.
Several of the current Wildcats – Andrew and Aaron Harrison, Willie Cauley-Stein, Dakari Johnson, Dominique Hawkins, Marcus Lee and Alex Poythress (although he’s injured now) – lost in a national championship game, and came back to change that outcome. Having someone in the locker room pre-game who went through a similar situation can be the burst of perspective this team can use to its advantage.
And although there are no signs of Kentucky’s loaded roster struggling with ego issues or “I don’t get enough minutes” complaints, it never hurts to hear straight from the title-winning horse’s mouth what it’s like to put aside individual accomplishment for the greater good. Delk, on the ’95-96 team, played alongside 10 other future pros – Derek Anderson, Jamaal Magloire, Walter McCarty, Ron Mercer, Nazr Mohammed, Scott Padgett, Mark Pope, Jeff Sheppard, Wayne Turner and Antoine Walker.
Whether this year’s Kentucky team will beat that record of 11 future pros on its roster remains to be seen. But it certainly has similar “problems” as the ’96 team did – if too much talent can be considered a problem. And no matter how much Cauley-Stein or the Harrison twins may have read about the team, there’s a certain degree of novelty associated with hearing it straight from a guy who lived it.
Of course, there’s no promise that Delk will speak to the team before the ceremony honoring him on Saturday. And there’s no promise that he hasn’t already spoken to the team before this weekend.
But regardless, he has a lot to teach to a team like this one. And even with a 26-0 record and no sign of letting up, any young team has a lot to learn from someone, like Delk, who played in the NBA for 10 years.
So although this year’s Wildcats have already made Kentucky basketball history, they can certainly still learn from from someone how represents it.
Ashley Scoby is a senior journalism major at the University of Kentucky and a sports writer for KyForward.com. She has reported on the Wildcats for wildcathoops.com, vaughtsviews.com and kysportsreport.com as well as for newspapers in Danville and Glasgow. She will join Sports Illustrated magazine as a summer intern in June.