By LARRY VAUGHT
Florida coach Billy Donovan tried his best to recurit Patrick Patterson to play for the Gators  and almost got him.
Donovan also remained one of Patterson’s biggest supporters during his three years at UK and knows not having him next year is a major loss for Kentucky.
“Any time you lose a good player it hurts your team. He had an outstanding career. He played for two different coaches,†Donovan said. “Two years he played in the low post and was very dominat and then John (Calipari) this year gave him the opportunity to step away from the basket and he showed he had the ability to do that.
“He had to play through two coaches, but he truly showed his greatness and flourished in two completely different styles. When you are talking about great players, they will be a great player in any system and he was.â€Â
What made Patterson so good?
“He played very, very fearlessly. He was a physical, powerful presence in our league. He played with great passion,†Donovan said. “That is a valuable commodity. That is also a skill and talent.
“When you lost it, it can change your team. I don’t know how his loss will impact Kentucky, but I admired how hard he played and competed. I felt Patrick always gave his all out there.â€Â
14 Responses to Donovan knows how good Patterson was
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Sounds like Billy D feels the same way about PP that all of
us in the BBN do.
I have not seen a player have such an impact on the Bluegrass like Patrick since Jamal Mashburn in the early 90′s. Patrick is certainly one of my all time favorite Cats and I will miss seeing #54 on the floor.
Lets not miss the biggest point of all. Lil Eddie could have coached Pat, had he taken the UK job when he had the chance. I’m still confused, although happy, as to why he didn’t come here. He will always be 2nd fiddle at FL. No matter how many titles he wins (2 is the final answer) he will never be any match for the future chain gang football team down there.
Nobody in the past 50 years has played such an important role in keeping the program from tanking and few have had the impact that PP did on the UK program. He should have his jersey hanging in the rafter of Rupp because there is a consensus feeling among UK supporters that he has truly been a cornerstone in keeping the BIG BLUE program from sinking the past few years. I think he has earned such recognition!!!!
Lou Eaton…I agree with you, Patrick did keep the boat from sinking, he held it together with spirt and soul. His hard work, love and determination poured forth from every fiber of his being. He is what a Kentucky basketball player is all about. He was Kentucky Basketball. He was not born in the bluegrass state, but he had bluegrass flowing through his viens from the time he stepped onto the soil of Kentucky. It is truly amazing how so many people hold Patrick in such high regards, not just from the state of Kentucky, not just eh BBN, but other teams fans and even their coaches. Patrick, we are gonna miss you young man, a lot! I think they should retire his jersey also. We have not seen the likes of him in a long time and I doubt if we will see another like him again in a very long time. GO CATS!
He will forever be a UK favorite.
Pat is one of those players like a Kyle Macy/Rex Chapman who will always be cherished in Kentucky  and should be
PP certainly did have a big role in keeping the UK program going at it’s lowest point in many years. But I think Chuck Hayes probably did more for the program. The Cats were sinking fast when Hayes lifted them up. Without Chuck PP might never have come to UK.
Remember that Billy D. had a big connection to Huntington, where PP played high school ball winning 3 AAA titles in a row. Florida was in Pat’s final 3 choices. I have to wonder if Patterson would have come to UK if players like Hayes hadn’t kept the spirit of the team alive. It was hard times for UK basketball and the downward spiral of recruiting that the Cats were in could have been considerably lower. It could have been low enough that Patterson chose to go to play for the former star of Marshall coaching, Billy D.. Even when Marshall was a football powerhouse Donovan was excelling there. Marshall usually only manages to have one good team at most.
I know Patterson made a huge contribution to UK. He will be one of my all time favorites for a long time to come. But Hayes did it almost in a vacuum. The teams he played on were the only bright spots in Smith’s lackluster years at UK. I never got the sense that UK could win it all in those days but they did sweep the SEC and were ranked #1 for a while. Considering most of Smith’s teams were unranked much of the time it was almost a miracle to see success like that at the time. And Hayes was the heart of that team IMO. I see that team 2002-03 team as the reason UK landed players like Rondo, Sparks, Bradley, Crawford and Morris and possibly Meeks. Still UK was always a day late and a dollar short in those days but Hayes had a hand in keeping the team from being a total washout IMO. That’s not to take one thing away from Patterson by any means. He was a great player for UK and a perfect example of the UK team oriented player.
Absolutely my most favorite player of any era. Could have gone pro last yr but stayed around to facilitate the Calipari transition. Outstanding player, student, and man…Best role model for kids…Donovan…like Pitino…made a bad choice..could have been king…hope the best for him though..would like to see him in 2nd place of the SEC East instead of Pearl…that guys nauseates me…
I agree with King about Chuck keeping UK afloat in the middle of Tubby’s tenure. He will forever be one of the greatest Wildcats, in my opinion, because of how solid a leader he was for 4 years. He did indeed keep Tubby from looking like a total loser and having 7 or 8 really mediocre/bad years. HE impacted UK’s recruiting, much like THIS past class will.
However, I think that Patrick’s road was quite a bit harder. He came in with a new, unproven coach and nowhere near the same calibre help around him. He adapted and dominated the inside, even though it wasn’t his true game. He stuck around during, what I think, was the second worse time in UK history, since I was born (Late 80′s, early 90′s, of course being the worst, for obvious reasons).
But these are all points that will be debated for as long as the current members of Big Blue Nation breathe.
HOW GREAT IS IT THAT THE 2, MOST RECENT, “BEST LOVED” WILDCATS GET TO PLAY ON THE SAME TEAM NEXT YEAR?
I may just have to become a Houston Rockets fan.
GO BIG BLUE!!!!
Hey Jim Bowers, Tubby Smith was no loser. He won a nation Championship and has a ton of former UK players in the pros. What you dont remember is Tubby Smith sold Patrick Patterson on UK before he left and Gillespie sealed the deal. Remember Patterson saying so? Simply put, Calipari is getting great recruits sure, but it seems he is recruiting the back of the jersey and Tubby recruited the front of the jersey, like Pitino, Hall and Rupp did.
Do you think Cal would recruit a young Chuck Hayes? Nope, he was not a 5 star! If you dont like Tubby fine, but dont bad mouth a National Championship coach at UK. I wont listen to it!
I agree with Jim 100% about Chuck Hayes’ role in prolonging the inevitable end to the Tubby Smith era at UK. Over the last 15 years, Chuck Hayes has been the most efficient Kentucky player over the course of his college career. Patterson ranks right up there, but falls a little short of the bar that Hayes established.
Hayes was something else. Ashame he had that incident after graduation that has basically kept him from coming back to Kentucky very often
Marion County, EASE UP! I wasn’t calling Tubby a loser. I merely stated that Chuck kept him from LOOKING like a loser. If Chuck had not been on those teams, they would not have had near the success they did and Tubby’s stay here would have been even shorter. I like Tubby and thought he did a tremendous job of recruiting players and molding them to HIS system, in the beginning. He turned some average players in to great players, by getting them to play together as TEAMS. And I still think that he was one of the best at making adjustments at halftime.
However, you cannot deny that he didn’t recruit very well in the last few years of his time here. I know he had a #1 class, but they evidently weren’t the type of player that he needed for his system, which means that he didn’t recruit well. If he didn’t want to use them the way their talents should have been used, then he shouldn’t have brought them here. You can’t deny that he took some great players, out of that class and made them average. Look at how under-utilized the skills of Rajon, Joe and Ramel were. Rajon was kept on a tight reign. And Joe and Ramel flourished, when they were cut loose under the next coach,
I will never be one of those people who says that Tubby only won his title because he had Pitino’s players either, He used that team better than Pitino would have. There was NO WAY Slick would have won a title with that team in 98.
GO BIG BLUE!!!!