When Mark Ingram won the Heisman Trophy, he became the first player from the tradition-rich Alabama program to receive that honor.  John Wall could achieve a similar distinction next spring for the University of Kentucky.  The Wooden Award was established in 1977, the Naismith Award in 1969 and the Adolph Rupp Award in 1972.  And the Associated Press has been picking a college basketball player-of-the-year since 1961.  The one thing all four of those awards have in common is that none of them has been won by a Kentucky Wildcat, but Wall is certainly a leading candidate to claim one of more of those prizes at the end of this season.  How about that?  Dan Issel avearged 33 points-per-game in 1970 but Pete Maravich of LSU won the PofY honors.  In 1980, Kyle Macy was certainly a worthy contender but DePaul's Mark Aguire was the player at the top of those lists.  In 1984, Kenny Walker should have won one or more of those honors but St. John's Walter Berry took all but one, which went to Duke's Johnny Dawkins.  Jamal Mashburn was a first-team All-American in 1993 but Indiana's Calbert Chaney was the consensus PofY.  And many of UK's other great seasons featured too much balance for any one player to claim of the PofY honor.  As Kentucky as this UK team is and with all of the attention Wall is getting--and with Patrick Patterson's wonderful attitude of being fine with all of that accaim for his younger teammate--Wall might just make history for the  Kentucky program this season as its first player-of-the-year.

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May 17th, 1975
Dan Issel and Artis Gilmore led the Kentucky Colonels to a 3-0 lead in the A...
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