I don’t remember his recruitment either, but Pitino had him locked up to come here. I believe even his Mom said he was coming to UK, or something to that effect. I’m not 100% sure how accurate that is.
What I do know is that Pitino had him coming here, then the brawl at the bowling alley happened. After that, UK basically pulled their scholarship offer to AI. The rest is history.
I remember he lost a scholarship offer over the bowling alley incident, but had forgotten it was from Kentucky...damn strange
Recap:
1. Iverson told his circle, including his mom, he was UK-bound during his junior year. At that time he was arguably the #1 player in his class and certainly the top guard. Not long thereafter, he got involved in the infamous bowling alley brawl, where he picked up a chair, used it as a weapon, and hurt a number of people, including a young lady. He was given a few months in jail. During that time, Pitino pulled his scholarship. Georgetown was one of the few who continued to stick by him.
** those in this thread insinuating that the 1996 UK team would have been worse with Iverson on it are absolutely absurd and have forgotten how good the kid was at G'Town. He went #1 for a reason in a draft that included Camby, Kobe, Nash, Ray Allen, Walker, Abdur-Rahim, Marbury, Kittles, Peja, Jermaine O'Neal, etc. Yeah, UMass thumped them in the Elite Eight. So what? Iverson would have been a team player on the 1995 and 1996 teams. To insinuate that Pitino would have let him jack 15-20 shots a game is laughable.
2. Ray Allen was also down to UK and UConn before his infamous trip to Lexington where Pitino evidently blew him off while he was eating out with Mashburn at Pitino's restaurant. Allen said Calhoun would have never done that, and ended up at UConn. We probably beat UNC in 1995 if we have a sophomore Ray Allen.
3. T-Mac was scheduled to choose UK in the fall of 1996 before Adidas offered him $10 million to skip college. If any of you decide to never buy a pair of shoes, make sure it's Adidas you reject after what they did to our recruitments of McGrady, Muhammed, and Wiggins.
If UK lands Hardy, it will be right up there with the Ray Allen commitment to UConn, except Hardy won't need the first year like Allen did to iron out his game. Hardy is in the league with Ray Allen. There games are very similar in terms of effortless scoring and all-around skill. People say "Bradley Beal" and that's also a fair comparison, but some of our fans have forgotten how well-rounded Ray Allen was between 1994-around 2008, when he started to lose some of his athleticism and become the spot-up guy so many modern fans remember him as.
Hardy to UK would be just about as big as Wall to UK at this point, and only a few notches south of Mashburn to UK. The difference, of course, is that we had Mashburn for three years and Hardy will only be here one if he comes.
If we get him, it brings UK back to a hype level we haven't seen since 2015. He's that good and our program needs a kid of that caliber if we're truly going to unite the fan base and return to our previous Antigua-era glory.
Fingers crossed for Saturday.
