Sports

A pre-season poll of football coaches names the Eastern Kentucky University Colonels as the favorite to win the Ohio Valley Conference this fall.   E-K-U last won that honor in 2009l. The Colonels, who have won a record 21 O-V-C titles, received two-thirds of the first-place votes. Jacksonville State finished second, followed by Murray State and Tennessee Tech.  Eastern Kentucky last year had a six-and-two record in the OVC.  This fall, the Colonels returns 17starters.  Ten  were named to the 20-12 preseason All-OVC team.

Georgetown College's application for membership to become a NCAA Division II member school has been denied, the school announced Friday. The decision was handed down by the NCAA's membership committee in a letter the school recieved Friday.

Wah Wah and King Kelly. Hagan and Haskins. Unseld and McDaniels. At exactly 6:37 p.m. Saturday evening, the door of a chartered bus opened outside a renovated movie theater. What walked out was a Dream Team of Kentucky basketball royalty. The new Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame inducted its inaugural class Saturday night in the State Theater in downtown Elizabethtown. Of the 16 Kentucky high school basketball figures recognized, every living member of the class showed up.

It seems Kentucky’s interested in hosting a professional women’s golf tournament and the L-P-G-A is interested in coming to Kentucky.  Ally Kicklighter is senior communications coordinator for the Ladies Professional Golf Association.  “On the LPGA level, we’re always looking for different markets and always looking for opportunities for more tournaments,” said Kicklighter.  Matt Sawyers is a deputy secretary in the Kentucky Tourism, Arts, and Heritage Cabinet.  “Well yes, there is interest in bringing an LPGA tour event here,” said Sawyers.

LEXINGTON – Kentucky has announced its 2012-13 men’s basketball non-conference schedule. The schedule features a season-opening game against Maryland on Nov. 9, opening the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., as a part of the Barclays Center Classic, followed by a Nov. 13 matchup against Duke in the Georgia Dome in the Champions Classic.

The newly-established Kentucky High School Basketball Hall of Fame will induct its first class Saturday. The inaugural class has 16 members---players and coaches from the 1940s through the 1990s. The class includes Louisville Male High School’s Darrell Griffith and Seneca’s Wes Unseld, both of whom would go on to play for the University of Louisville and in the NBA.

Brad Keselowski stretched his fuel Saturday at Kentucky Speedway and pulled away to win the Quaker State 400 in a backup car. Driving his third race in as many sultry nights at the 1.5-mile track, Keselowski showed no signs of fatigue by taking his No. 2 Dodge to victory lane for a Sprint Cup Series-leading third time this season.

A steady stream of traffic moved smoothly into the Kentucky Speedway all day Saturday for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Quaker State 400 – a sharp contrast to last year’s inaugural race, where mismanaged and inadequate parking resulted in hours-long traffic jams that caused more than 10,000 fans to miss the race entirely.

All six members of the national champion University of Kentucky men’s basketball team who declared for the NBA draft were chosen last night, including four in the first round of 30 picks.  It was the first time that six players from a college team were selected in a single draft.

The final three days live racing for the Churchill Downs spring meet will be held Friday through Sunday, but under a revised schedule. High temperatures around the 100 degree mark forced Churchill Downs to cancel its Thursday racing card.   Spokesman Darren Rogers says it was just the 18th time in the track’s long history that the races were called off.

Kentucky will be the first horse-racing state to ban race-day use of an anti-bleeding drug known as Lasix, also known by its generic name of furosemide. The ruling by the state's Horse Racing Commission would ban of the use of furosemide in some upper-level stakes races beginning in 2014. And it would apply to the Kentucky Derby the next year.

Triple Crown contender I’ll Have Another has been scratched from tomorrow’s Belmont Stakes. Trainer Doug O’Neill says he pulled the colt from the race after he showed early signs of tendonitis in his left front leg.    O’Neill told radio talk show host Dan Patrick that he’s not sure how I’ll Have Another was injured, but he’s not taking any chances by running him Saturday.

Triple Crown contender I’ll Have Another is the 4-5 early favorite to win the Belmont Stakes. The Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner leads a 12 horse field.    He’ll run from post position No. 11, which is fine with trainer Doug O’Neill.

Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas returned to work today at Belmont Park, a day after he was taken to the hospital with a head injury. The 76 year old Lukas needed several stitches after one of his horses reared up and struck him in the top of the head.

Kentucky Derby winner I’ll Have Another has captured the second jewel of racing’s Triple Crown, overtaking Bodemeister at the finish line to win the 137th Preakness Stakes. I’ll Have Another now has a chance to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978. The final leg of the series is the Belmont Stakes in three weeks in New York.

The Big Blue Nation invaded the East Room of the White House Friday afternoon as President Barack Obama honored the 2012 National Championship team in front of a packed room filled with cheering fans, family members and friends. Obama especially commended the players' ability to play as a team and said because of that ability, they were able to "do something special right away."

In a last minute move to the finish I’ll Have Another won the 138th Kentucky Derby, upsetting a top contender who held the lead most of the race. “It’s beyond belief,” said trainer Doug O’Neill after the race. “Somebody asked me earlier in the week what would it be like to win the Kentucky Derby. I used Bubba Watson’s quote when he won the Masters: I never dreamt this far. I never in a million years thought we could do this,” he said.

Kentucky men’s basketball coach John Calipari and assistant coaches Orlando Antigua, Kenny Payne and John Robic have signed multi-year contracts with the University of Kentucky, UK Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart announced on Friday. “It’s rare, in this day and age, to be able to keep a staff together that has helped produce a national championship and back-to-back Final Four runs,” Barnhart said in a statement released by the UK athletics department. “We want to show them how appreciative we are of their hard work and dedication, and how much they mean to this program.”

It may not be the most stunning trophy in the sports world, but the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team isn’t shy about showing off its national championship trophy. Over the past month the wood and gold-plated trophy has been kissed by the players, sat in the Cincinnati Reds dugout, and this week a Lexington baker even made a cake that looks like the trophy. It's made stops across the state from Ashland to Paducah.