COACH HALL
J
oe b. hall
University of Kentucky Basketball Coach
Joe B. Hall begins his 13th season as head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats with one of the finest career records in college Dasketball.
While leading the Wildcats to a 29-5 record last year, Hall upped his 12-year UK record to 279-87, an average of nearly 23 wins a season. His victory percentage at UK is 76.2 percent.
UK's 1983-84 appearance in the Final Four was its third under Hall. He has taken his squad to the NCAA final eight on six occasions and to the final 16 on seven occasions.
Hall has won such honors as Kellogg's 1978 National Coach of the Year, four Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year awards (1973, '75, '78 and '83), and nomination for Kodak's 1975, '76, '78, and '84 Coach of the Year awards.
In 1978 when Kentucky won its fifth NCAA title, Hall was presented the Rupp Cup (presented to the SEC Coach of the Year by the Birmingham Tipoff Club) and Hall's most coveted personal award, the Dr. James Naismith "Peachbasket" award, which previously had been awarded to UCLA's John Wooden, Oklahoma State's Hank Iba, Kentucky's Adolph Rupp and the Boston Celtics' Red Auerbach.
The 1978 champions, which had a 30-2 record, became the sixth Wildcat team to win 30 or more games, joining such illustrious company
as the 1947 NIT runner-up (34-3), the 1948 Olympic Champions (36-3), the 1949 NCAA Champions (32-2), the 1951 NCAA Champions (32-2), and the 1975 NCAA Runner-up (32-2).
Player honors during Hall's UK reign include five All-Americans (Kevin Grevey, Jack Givens, Rick Robey, Kyle Macy and Sam Bowie) selected a total of 10 times, and eight All-Southeastern Conference honorees (Jim Andrews, Kevin Grevey, Jack Givens, Rick Robey, Kyle Macy, Sam Bowie, Derrick Hord and Melvin Turpin) selected a total of 17 times. In addition, Robey, Macy and Jim Master earned Gold Medals in the Pan-American Games, and Bowie earned a medal for being a member of the 1980 Olympic Basketball Team that did not participate in Moscow.
Entering the 1983-84 season, Hall's 18-year career coaching record stands at 355-143 (excluding a 17-2 record on a 1974 Australian tour, a 7-0 record on a 1978 Japan tour, an 8-0 record on a 1982 tour of the Orient, and eight pre-season exhibition wins against foreign and domestic teams). Broken down, it shows a 57-50 five-year mark at Regis, a 19-6 record at Central Missouri, and a 279-87 record at UK.
Hall began his tour as UK head coach in rather auspicious fashion, becoming in 1973 the first rookie coach in the SEC to be designated Coach of the Year by his fellow coaches and by Coach and Athlete Magazine.
Gathering such honors has been one of Hall's trademarks during a coaching career that began at Shepherdsville (Ky.) High School in 1956 and continued through Regis College and Central Missouri State College before he
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