![\"screenshot-2025-08-21-at-9-31-31-pm\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/screenshot-2025-08-21-at-9-31-31-pm-e1755829926170.webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
John Wall had blazing speed with the ball and helped put UK basketball back on the national map. (UK Athletics Photo)<\/p>\n
For those who were too young to either see John Wall play at Kentucky or appreciate what it did for the UK basketball program there\u2019s really no reason to explain what his one-year presence on John Calipari\u2019s team meant.<\/p>\n
Kentucky was close to rock bottom after two years of having Billy Gillispie as head coach when Calipari was hired. It started a remarkable run with a national title in 2012, Final Four trips in 2011, 2014 and 2015, a near perfect season in 2014-15, and a dynamic season in 2009-2010 in Calipari\u2019s first year that had UK ranked No. 1 before it lost in the Elite Eight.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my lifetime following UK basketball, there have been no recruits that meant more to the program than John Wall and Jamal Mashburn.\u00a0 They signaled to UK fans that the program\u2019s resilience was something they could always count on,\u201d UK fan Chris Pullem posted on X.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s right. Mashburn came to UK to play for coach Rick Pitino after the Cats were on probation because of what happened at the end of previous coach Eddie Sutton\u2019s career. But as good as Mashburn was, he was not the rock star that Wall was. Maybe no UK player in my 51 years covering the Wildcats has been other than Rex Chapman about 40 years ago. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember seeing John Wall for the first time in Vegas after his sophomore year of high school. So electric. Was one of those guys who always did something to make you shake your head in disbelief. Not sure I have seen anyone faster from end to end,\u201d national basketball analyst Jeff Goodman posted on social media this week after Wall officially announced his retirement from the NBA.<\/p>\n
\u201cThink you can absolutely argue John Wall is one of the 2-3 most influential college basketball players of this century. If he doesn\u2019t commit to, and have the season he did at Kentucky, I\u2019m not sold that the next 10 years of the Calipari era are as successful as they were,\u201d FoxSports Radio host Aaron Torres said.<\/p>\n
Wall committed to Kentucky about three weeks after Calipari was hired after Gillispie was fired following the 2008-2009 season. He joined a team with DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe, Patrick Patterson and others.<\/p>\n
Big Blue Madness that year was insane and was the debut of the \u201cJohn Wall Dance\u201d that went viral. Wall hit the game-winning shot in his Rupp Arena debut and led UK to wins over North Carolina and Connecticut, both ranked teams, in his first month of college. He averaged 16.6 points per game \u2014 and probably could have scored any time he wanted \u2014 but also set a UK assists record while dishing out 6.5 assists per game. The Cats won the SEC regular-season and tournament titles and he was the national player of the year and No. 1 pick in the 2010 NBA Draft.<\/p>\n
He averaged 18.7 points, 8.9 assists and 4.2 rebounds in 647 regular-season NBA games but after injuries forced him to miss the last two seasons, he finally ended his comeback effort.<\/p>\n
I still remember the love Wall had for his mother, who he said at times didn\u2019t pay bills so he would have money for AAU fees, and grandmother. They died within a year of each other and sent him into a downward spiral where he almost took his life.<\/p>\n
Wall will still be involved in basketball. NBA on Prime, Amazon Prime\u2019s NBA coverage, announced Wednesday that Wall is joining their coverage as an analyst in its first season of NBA coverage. Amazon will stream games exclusively on Friday nights through December before adding Thursday and Saturday games later in the season.<\/p>\n
Wall will be on Amazon\u2019s studio show that also includes former NBA stars Blake Griffin and Dirk Nowitzki, and will be hosted by Taylor Rooks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Wall had blazing speed with the ball and helped put UK basketball back on the national map.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":166528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-166527","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115072567279709954","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}