Big Blue Madness recap and Twitter reactions from an epic night at Rupp Arena

An incredible night was capped off by Rick Pitino’s return to the Big Blue Nation!

The electricity is back at Rupp Arena after an outstanding night of Big Blue Madness with the introduction of new Kentucky Wildcats head coaches Mark Pope and Kenny Brooks.

To start out, Brooks got the crowd going as he walked out to the floor of Rupp Arena along with the team. Once he got out there, he gave a speech that was short and to the point.

Brooks knows what Kentucky is all about and that this is the best midnight madness event in college basketball.

After the women’s team walked off the court, there was an intermission for the dance team to perform, but there was an even bigger surprise.

Kentucky football head coach Mark Stoops walked out to mid-court and talked to the fanbase about how he was appreciative of them and wanted to welcome in Brooks and Pope as head coaches.

As for the men’s side, each player walked out in different sections and had their own player intro. Seeing the players interact with the fan base was a nice little twist.

Pope did the exact same by walking out of one of the sections.

To recap the night, the 1996 championship team came out with the NCAA championship trophy. The real highlight was former Kentucky basketball head coach Rick Pitino making an appearance and giving a great speech about what he calls ‘Camelot.’

Overall, it was such an epic night to have Pope, Brooks, Stoops, and Pitino unite the Big Blue Nation.

Now, let’s get to who won what competitions:

Women’s basketball skills challenge

The skills challenge consisted of three members on each side, and the white team was able to defeat the blue team in this competition. The white team consisted of Lexi Blue, Dazia Lawrence, and Teonni Key, who won it all. The blue team had Georgia Amoore, Clara Strack, and Saniah Tyler.

Women’s hot spot contest

This contest consisted of three teams, each with two players. The players were supposed to hit shots on the different “hot spots,” which would light up with point values. Amelia Hassett and Teonni Key won the competition with 27 points. Cassidy Rowe and Clara Silva came in second with 26 points. Finally, Lexi Blue and Clara Strack finished with 22 points together.

3-point competition women’s

The women’s basketball team will have plenty of shooters for this year’s team and that is what Brooks targeted in his first year. In the first round, Hassett came in first with 23 points, Dazia Lawrence got 17 points, Amoore 10 points, and finally Rowe at 10 points.

In the final round, Lawrence came out on top with 23 points, defeating Hassett, who had 12 points in the championship round.

3-point competition men’s

Six players participated in the competition: Travis Perry, Trent Noah, Kerr Kriisa, Koby Brea, Jaxson Robinson, and Ansley Almonor. Perry won the first round with 25 points, Noah had 22, Robinson and Brea both scored 21, and Almonor and Kriisa had 18.

In the final round, it was the battle of the freshmen and Kentucky boys with Perry and Noah. Perry eventually defeats Noah, as Perry finished with 27 points, but Noah is not far behind, finishing with 26 points in total.

Dunk contest

Surprisingly, only two players participated in the dunk contest: Lamont Butler and Collin Chandler. The biggest surprise is they had kids judging the contest, and they weren’t too impressed by Butler’s dunk, which gave him 36s in both rounds.

Chandler scored 43 points in the first round, but in the second round he brought the whole house down with him rocking a Pope Kentucky jersey and then dunking over Pope and his wife, and the judges gave him a perfect score of 50 points!

Here is how Twitter was reacting throughout Big Blue Madness.

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