(Author's Note: this was originally published on my own blog, but I thought it'd be appropriate to share. Yes, I know I wax poetic. No, I'm not going to apologize.)

"They have a big, big horse race, they play very good basketball, they have babies like everyone else." -Roy Scheider (as Dr. Heywood Floyd) in 2010: The Year We Make Contact, when asked "What else do they do in Kentucky?"

That’s the only part I remember from that movie. It amazed my young mind that, hey, twenty-four years from now, when humanity finally leaves its earthly home and begins finding its place in the stars, Kentucky basketball will still be talked about!

Now it’s actually 2010 and we aren’t appreciably closer to exploring the Solar System, let alone the galaxy. What about the rest? Is Kentucky basketball still great, its destiny still written in those stars that we haven’t gotten around to exploring?

The short answer is yes, Kentucky basketball is every bit as great as it was when 2010 was in the theaters.

The long answer is that it wasn’t always great in that span. Or even good.

Continue reading this post »