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When you think of true college basketball bluebloods, one of the first schools that probably comes to mind is the Kentucky Wildcats. The Wildcats’ storied basketball tradition goes back to the days of Adolf Rupp and continues today with John Calipari.
Kentucky has produced its share of all-time greats, national champions, and Hall of Famers, so it’s hard to whittle them down to 10.
Here is our list of the top 10 Kentucky Wildcats men’s college basketball players of all time.
Karl-Anthony Towns was a star before he arrived at Kentucky and his legend only grew when he arrived in Lexington. Towns was a consensus second-team All-American, SEC Freshman of the Year, and made the SEC’s All-Freshman team. He averaged almost 11 points per game and two blocks per game in his only year with the Wildcats. He’s currently in the midst of an extremely successful NBA career with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Ralph Beard’s career was tarnished by the 1951 NCAA point-shaving scandal in which he admitted that he took $700 but denied that he had ever done anything to fix a game. It’s a shame because Beard, a three-time All-American, was a member of Adolph Rupp’s “Fabulous Five” team that won two national championships. He averaged 12 points per game during his time at Kentucky and played two years in the NBA before his ban due to the scandal.
Kenny “Sky” Walker was an unbelievable player for the Wildcats in the 1980s. Walker was a two-time All-American and two-time SEC Player of the Year, setting a record by scoring 11 times on 11 field goal attempts in the NCAA Tournament. Walker left Kentucky with 2,058 points, 942 rebounds, and 122 block shots. The only thing missing in Walker’s college playing career was a national championship.
John Wall can arguably be called the best athlete to ever play for John Calipari. In Wall’s only year in a Kentucky uniform, he was an All-American and SEC Player of the Year. He also was SEC Tournament MVP and part of the SEC’s All-Freshman Team. In 2009, he set a Kentucky record for 16 assists in a game, with 11 coming in the first half. Wall averaged 16 points and nearly seven assists a game during his brief time at Kentucky before embarking on a long and successful NBA career.
Alex Groza was a dominant force for the Wildcats during the late 1940s. He is a two-time national champion, two-time All-American, and was one of the captains of Kentucky’s “Fabulous Five,” who won back-to-back national championships in 1948 and ’49. He was also the two-time Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament. Unfortunately, Groza was part of the 1951 point-shaving scandal and was banned from playing in the NBA despite being an All-NBA First Team player in both 1950 and 1951.
Pat Riley is synonymous with NBA championships thanks to his coaching and front-office positions with the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat. Before that, he was a stellar basketball player for the Wildcats back in the day. Riley was a two-time All-American who also won SEC Player of the Year in 1966, leading the Wildcats to the 1966 national championship game against Texas Western. Riley ended his college career averaging 18 points per game, though he averaged 22 points in 1966. A little-known fact about Riley is that he played against Kareem Adul-Jabbar, whom he would later coach, in high school in 1961.
While Cliff Hagan’s senior season at Kentucky was canceled following the 1951 point-shaving scandal, he still put together an impressive college campaign for the Cats. Hagan was a two-time All-American and national champion who still holds the school record for rebounding average with 13.4 in 77 total games. Hagan may have broken even more records had he been able to play his senior season. Overall, he scored 1,475 points and 1,035 rebounds in his career. His number was retired by the school he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978.
Jamal Mashburn started strong at Kentucky and only got stronger. As a freshman, he was named to the All-SEC Freshman Team and All-SEC Third Team. By his sophomore year, he was named an All-American, All-SEC First Team, and SEC Tournament MVP. In his junior season, the SEC Player of the Year was a consensus first-team All-American who led the Wildcats to the Final Four. “Monster Mash” scored 1,843 points and grabbed 760 rebounds for Kentucky before being drafted with the fourth overall pick by the Dallas Mavericks.
Dan Issel’s story is an interesting one. Early on in his Kentucky career, his teammates didn’t want to give him the ball. Head coach Adolf Rupp had to put a stop to it. According to Sports Illustrated, Rupp said “This guy is going to be Kentucky’s all-time leading scorer by the time he’s through here. I thought you might like to meet him,” and that was that. Issel would go on to score 2,138 points (25.7 per game) and also grabbed 1,078 rebounds while becoming a two-time All-American. He is still the school’s career leader in total points. He went on to have a great career in the ABA and NBA and is a member of the College Basketball Hall of Fame and Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
Even though he played for the Wildcats for only one year, Anthony Davis made the most of his team in a Wildcats uniform. Davis was part of head coach John Calipari’s only national championship team, an All-American, Consensus National Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, SEC Player of the Year, NCAA leader in blocks, SEC Defensive Player of the Year, NCAA Most Outstanding Player in the Final Four, and was named SEC Rookie of the Year. To say Davis was dominant during his brief time with the Kentucky would be an understatement. Davis was unstoppable. Calipari once called Davis a “generational player” when the Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA championship in 2020.
