UK alum Tom Leach has been the play-by-play “Voice of the Wildcats” for the football Cats for 12 years and nine years for men’s basketball. He is a four-time winner of the Kentucky Sportscaster of the Year award. Tom offers an entertaining and insightful perspective into UK athletics. Column entries will be posted twice per week through April. Read Tom’s full biography
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Southeastern Conference Tournament time is a little like a family reunion and one of the folks we see only at this event but who always has interesting things to say is former Auburn coach Sonny Smith.
I caught up to him during Thursday’s opening session and he spoke glowingly about Nashville, Tenn., hosting the tournament, in part because of its proximity to Big Blue fans, who will help fill the seats. Smith says it’s good for the league for Kentucky to be an elite team again.
“No question. Everybody also gets a little jealous of Kentucky but look at what they’ve done for this league over the years,” Smith told tomleachky.com. “Kentucky has made this league better because they made everybody play catch up. That drove me when I coached in the league — to beat Kentucky and beat Alabama. And if you ask what came first, I’d say beating Kentucky.”
Smith says Kentucky is the clear favorite to win its 26th SEC Tournament title but it’s no sure thing.
“Being as young as they are, they go through lulls where they go through five minutes at a time where they don’t score the ball so they could easily get beat,” Smith said. “But you’ve got think they’re the favorite. They know how to win.”
I also asked him to comment on some of the stars on the Kentucky team:
On John Wall, he said, “when it comes to transition basketball — and taking over a game –he’s the best in this league.”
On Patrick Patterson: “I love him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player as good as him sacrifice as much as he has to make the team better. He could have scored a ton of points.”
As for Demarcus Cousins: “I don’t think I’ve seen a post player come into the game as a freshman that heavy and have the offensive skills that he has. His hands are so good.”
Smith says he sees some similarities between his former star at Auburn, Charles Barkley, and Cousins, from the standpoint of getting into tip-top shape.
“(Charles) was fun to coach because he gave you a chance to win every night but he was difficult to coach because he didn’t want to work as hard as he needed to to be a superstar,” Smith said. “He could turn it off and turn it on and I wanted to turn it on all the time.
Asked how much he sees of Barkley in Cousins, Smith said a great deal.
“But when he turns it on, you can forget those times when he turns it off,” Smith said.
