Cats prepare for chance at 2,000th victory

On Feb. 18, 1903, the Cats recorded their first win by the score of 11-10 over Lexington YMCA. They finished 1-2 on the season. Nearly 107 years later, the Cats are taking aim at their 2,000th.

They’re the winningest program in all of college basketball, they’ve won seven national championships and 43 Southeastern Conference Championships. But on Monday night, the Cats could be the first team in college basketball history to eclipse the 2,000-win mark.

“This program has created a pride in this state,” UK head coach John Calipari said. “From eastern, to western, to northern, to southern Kentucky. People have a pride in their commonwealth’s team and it means something to them.”

When Calipari took over the head coaching position at UK on April 1, 2009, the Cats were sitting on 1,988 wins. On April 2, 2009 Calipari said he started thinking about how UK could get 12 more wins before North Carolina, sitting at 1,984 wins at the time, got to 16.

With such a rich tradition and history in the program, Calipari said his role in the mark is minimal, but he said he feels a sense of responsibility to the not only the former players and coaches, but also the state and university.

“The responsibility was, ‘Here’s your part. You better get us to 12 before (UNC) gets to 16.”

Still, with highly-ranked teams on the schedule in UNC and Connecticut at a neutral venue in New York City, an early season tournament in Cancun and a rivalry game on the road against Indiana, Calipari said he didn’t expect Drexel to be the game where the Cats would go for their 2,000th win.

“I thought we’d have three or four losses with such a young team,” Calipari said.

Seniors Ramon Harris and Perry Stevenson are the first four-year scholarship players to play under three different coaches since 1929. After going through the ups and downs and seeing what the program means, Harris said being the first to 2,000 wins would mean a lot to the state.

“It’s something that nobody’s done before,” Harris said. “It would be a privilege to be a part of it.

“People are used to Kentucky being first at everything. No disrespect to any other college program, but people in this state expect Kentucky to do big things year after year. This is just something to add to the list.”