Kentucky basketball

The Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball program is the men's college basketball team of the University of Kentucky. It has eight NCAA championships, the best all-time winning percentage, and the most all-time victories. For their success, Kentucky has claimed to be "The Greatest Tradition in the History of College Basketball." The Wildcats compete in the Southeastern Conference and are coached by Mark Pope.

Adolph Rupp first brought Kentucky to national prominence, winning four NCAA titles. Since then, Joe B. Hall, Rick Pitino, Tubby Smith, and John Calipari each won a national championship, making Kentucky the only school with five coaches to win NCAA championships and placing it second only to UCLA for most titles. Kentucky has finished as the NCAA runner-up four times, making it tied with UCLA and North Carolina for all-time title game appearances at 12. The program has played in 17 NCAA Final Fours, trailing only Duke(18) [[North Carolina (21) and UCLA.(20) Kentucky leads all schools in several NCAA tournament stats: Elite Eight appearances at 38, Sweet Sixteen appearances at 45, total NCAA tournament appearances at 61, and tournament games played at 184. The program is behind only North Carolina with 133 NCAA tournament wins, North Carolina has 134. Kentucky has also won the National Invitation Tournament twice, making it the only school to win multiple NCAA and NIT championships, and it leads all schools in total postseason appearances at 68. Additionally, the Helms Athletic Foundation retroactively declared Kentucky the 1933 national champion and picked the 1954 Wildcats team as the national champion, the latter being Kentucky's only undefeated team in the modern era (post-1930). The Helms designations are not recognized by the NCAA as official national championships, despite the NCAA referencing Helms's historical findings. The 1948 NCAA champion team, coached by Rupp, represented the United States in the Olympics and won a gold medal.