Kentucky basketball found itself featured in an unusual place during Thursday night’s primetime television window.
Law & Order, the iconic police procedural drama, is in its 24th season of depicting fictional cases “ripped from the headlines.” In this week’s episode, titled “Big Brother,” the victim is a college basketball coach named Nick Walsh, who was murdered and robbed for his Rolex and the bag of money he was carrying. In the opening scene, which can be found below, we find out that Walsh had a massive job offer on the table from BBN.
The woman in the clip who is part of the medical examiner’s office says she’s a “big fan” of Walsh and that it’s “not easy to go back-to-back in college.”
“Kentucky just offered this guy 100 mil for five years,” one detective can be heard saying.
Immediately, it jumps out that the Walsh character seems to be a little more than loosely based on UConn head coach Dan Hurley.
Hurley, like Walsh, has an Irish surname, and just won back-to-back national championships. He was also reportedly offered a massive contract by Kentucky this offseason, but turned it down, just as he did the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers.
In the show, Walsh apparently did not get that opportunity.
Kentucky wound up hiring former Wildcat Mark Pope off a successful stint at BYU. Pope went 110-52 with two NCAA Tournament appearances and a trip to the NIT in five seasons in Provo.
The pressure on Pope from Wildcat fans this season will be palpable, but we don’t anticipate his life ever being in danger, unlike the fictional Nick Walsh.
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