Kenny Sailors Holding the Trophy with his Wyoming Team after winning the 1943 National Title

    I guess just like Kenny’s Game back in the early 1930′s, his lifetime achievements in College Basketball are finally being acknowledged as he nears the ripe old age of 91. Last Monday’s announcement by the College Basketball Hall of Fame in Kansas City Kansas brings a new chapter into the 5 year old facility that houses some of the greatest names to have ever been involved with Collegiate basketball. Kenny Sailors who patented his version of the Jump Shot because at 5’10 he couldn’t shoot over his older brother who was a giant at 6’4 used his newly patterned technique that would elevate him to the grandest stage back in the early spring of 1943 at Madison Square Garden where the Cowboys shocked the basketball world by defeating Georgetown for the National Championship.

Back in the Spring of 2008 I had the chance to stay in Laramie for a week to watch my brother’s last 2 Home Games as a Cowboy. As I walked inside the Arena Auditorium also known as the Double A, I walked around the circular hallways outside the stands hoping to catch a glance of the 1943 National Championship Trophy and hopefully get to meet the only player who has his Uniform hanging from the Rafters. There he sat at the scorers table. I was hesitant at first as the Cowboys were working on defensive assignments for their match up that evening against BYU. I approached Kenny and Blurted out “Hi, My name is Miguel Rodriguez and I’m a great fan of yours!” He looked at me with a smile and he answered back “Your a young looking 99 !”  I laughed and I told Kenny I was here for Senior Day! He laughed again and said “If my math is correct your here 6 days early and 2 games away?” The old man still has it. I let Kenny know who my brother was and he said he was a great shooter with a quick release!” I told him thanks for the compliment but the 3 things I wanted to do while I was in Laramie was to meet him and to be on the floor for his Senior Day to thank the fans.

We talked about the 2 game home stand coming up, what Wyoming needed to do to win and possibly get an at large bid and then we went back in time on what the season was like back in 1943 , the old gym or barn as Kenny referred to it as and how that trip in 1943 was a memorable one for him and how it was the longest train ride he’d ever been on.

To look at Kenny back then who was 87 years old at the time, he was in good health, had his old school buzz cut still going but deep down inside watching how he took great pride in talking about the program then and now it was one of those moments that you felt you were in a time machine as I hung on his every word.

He talked about how he didn’t realize how his Jump Shot would revolutionize the game and how more players after watching him play didn’t start using it. “Players back then were still in love with the set shot, but in order to get that off you needed a quick release and some space to be accurate!”

My sneaker collecting obsession was evident in asking Kenny if he wore Goodyear canvas shoes, he remembered seeing them in New York but he wore as did the rest of the team Converse Chuck Taylors. We touched upon his short career in the BBA which eventually became the N.B.A. and how living in the East and traveling via bus and trains were the standard back then. He did say that even though that train ride back from New York was a long one, it was the happiest one he’ll ever remember.

I don’t know if Kenny will be flying or driving come November when he’s inducted into the college basketball hall of fame but lets hope the Naismith Hall of Fame follows suit to one of the great inventors of the game who is also a champion and a great ambassador for the University of Wyoming.

‘Hardcore Brackets’ to air on truTV – NCAA.com

College Basketball Highlights
• Conference Championship Central

INDIANAPOLIS— In the NCAA’s continuing efforts to increase understanding of its processes, the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee will unveil the 68 team seed list for the first time.

Basketball Committee chair Jeff Hathaway and vice chair Mike Bobinski will appear on the Infiniti NCAA Hardcore Brackets show, which will air Selection Sunday at 7 p.m. EST on truTV.

The 2012 Division I Men’s Basketball Championship will be revealed on the traditional NCAA Selection Show at 6 p.m. EST on CBS and will feature Hathaway, Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg and Steve Kerr from Banker’s Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. They will be joined by Greg Gumbel, Greg Anthony and Seth Davis, who will be in the CBS Broadcast Center in New York.

What will take place after the Selection Show is unprecedented.

The Hardcore Brackets show will feature Hathaway, a consultant for the Big East Conference, and Bobinski, the director of athletics at Xavier University and next season’s chair of the men’s basketball committee, speaking with Gumbel, Anthony, Davis, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith.

On the one-hour show, the committee members will discuss “inside the room” details never previously shared, including unveiling the overall seed list that features every tournament team ranked Nos. 1 through 68. Reasons behind teams’ movement on the seed list will be examined, and the committee members will discuss the pros and cons for teams that were, or were not, selected to receive at-large bids to the championship.

“This is a new day that has been years in the making,” said Hathaway, who is in his fifth and final year as a member of the committee. “We continue to add initiatives to increase understanding of the committee’s work during selection weekend. We want to explain why teams were selected and seeded as reflected in the bracket and elaborate on the procedures and real-life road blocks that arise during the course of the bracketing process.”

The show furthers NCAA championships’ other recent efforts to increase understanding of the selection seeding and bracketing processes, including:

• This week’s Super 10 Fan Selection Committee
• This year’s weekly, public release of team sheets and “nitty gritty reports” on Division I teams
• The media mock selection sessions, now in their sixth year.

The initiative will ultimately incorporate all 89 NCAA championships throughout the year.

Carmelo Anthony and Syracuse took the title over Kansas the last time the Final 4 was held in New Orleans….

Here are the dates and locations for the 2012 NCAA men’s basketball tournament:

• Selection Sunday
March 11, 2012

• First Round
March 13-14, 2012
UD Arena (Dayton, Ohio)

• Second-Third Rounds
March 15, 17, 2012
Rose Garden (Portland, Oreg.)
The Pit (Albuquerque, N.M.)
Consol Energy Center (Pittsburgh)
KFC Yum! Center (Louisville, Ky.)

March 16, 18, 2012
Nationwide Arena (Columbus, Ohio)
Qwest Center Omaha (Omaha, Neb.)
Bridgestone Arena (Nashville, Tenn.)
Greensboro, N.C. (Greensboro, N.C.)

• East Regional
March 22, 24, 2012
TD Garden (Boston)

• Southwest Regional
March 22, 24, 2012
US Airway Center (Phoenix)

• Midwest Regional
March 23, 25, 2012
Edward Jones Dome (St. Louis)

• Southeast Regional
March 23, 25, 2012
Georgia Dome (Atlanta)

• National Semifinals
March 31, 2012
Louisiana Superdome (New Orleans)

• Championship Game
April 2, 2012
Louisiana Superdome (New Orleans)

A decade ago the picture above wouldn’t be possible. Having dinner during the NCAA Tournament knowing full well once the weekend comes it’s time to pack the bags and head out to one of the regional sites where the “Greatest Spectacle on Earth” March Madness is played. The Final 4 will be played this year in New Orleans!

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