Buckle up, Kentucky basketball fans. You are certain to witness history in 2021-22.

Before the first game tips off, we already know the best thing that is going to happen in Kentucky college basketball in 2021-22:

The fans will be back.

Last year, the coronavirus substantially restricted the number of fans allowed to watch hoops in our state.

This season, while masks may be required, it appears presently that attendance restrictions for college hoops in the commonwealth will be gone.

That alone assures the coming season will be better than the past one.

Below are 10 story lines that could make Kentucky college hoops historic in 2021-22:

10. A woman working in the men’s world. Brescia University hiring a new men’s hoops coach would not normally attract much attention.

However, the Catholic college in Owensboro made the most interesting coaching hire in Kentucky in many years when it named Milwaukee Bucks basketball operations aide Sarah Gayler as its new men’s basketball head coach.

According to Brescia, Gayler will be the first female to coach a men’s hoops team in the history of the NAIA — which formed in 1937.

9. Can Stansbury get over the hump? With ample recruiting success and four straight 20-win seasons, Rick Stansbury has made Western Kentucky men’s basketball interesting.

What Stansbury has yet to do as WKU coach is get the Hilltoppers into the NCAA Tournament.

To try, try again, Stansbury has built a 2021-22 roster with unusual length. Western’s front court goes 7-foot-5, 6-10, 6-9, 6-8 and 6-7; it also has five guards between 6-4 and 6-6.

8. Our state’s biggest star? If social-media prominence is the measuring stick, the college hoops player in the commonwealth with the most star power is Louisville women’s basketball guard Hailey Van Lith.

A 5-7 sophomore from Wenatchcee, Wash., Van Lith has over 700,000 followers on Instagram.

On the court, Van Lith (11.2 ppg, 5.2 rpg, 63 assists vs. 52 turnovers as a freshman) will be the driving force for U of L as the No. 6 Cards seek to earn Jeff Walz’s fourth trip to the Final Four.

7. Bellarmine’s encore? Last season, in the first year of Bellarmine’s transition to NCAA Division I, the Knights men’s basketball program produced a storybook season.

Coach Scott Davenport’s team performed so well (14-8, 10-3 ASUN Conference), the Knights came within one game of winning the ASUN regular-season championship.

This year, Bellarmine will have lost the surprise factor and the competition in the ASUN will be more rugged with the arrival of Eastern Kentucky (22-7 in 2020-21) and Jacksonville State (18-9) from the OVC.

6. A.W. Hamilton’s “multi-player swap.” Following EKU’s feel-good, 22-7 men’s basketball season in 2020-21, Colonels head man Hamilton watched his two best players exit via the transfer portal.

Senior-to-be power forward Tre King (14.9 points, 6.2 rebounds) switched to the Georgetown Hoyas; sophomore-to-be point guard Wendell Green (15.8 points, 3.4 rebounds, 5.0 assists) chose Auburn.

In response, Hamilton went to work in the portal himself, adding 6-9 Marshall transfers Jannson Williams (9.4 points, 4.3 rebounds, 2.0 blocks in 2020-21) and Iran Bennett (injured last season, but 9.1 points and 5.3 rebounds in 2019-20).

To buoy the backcourt, Hamilton brought in veteran North Carolina State guard Braxton Beverly, the ex-Perry County Central star. EKU also added 5-11 Wichita State transfer Trevin Wade.

How well Hamilton worked the college hoops “transactions process” may determine the fate of EKU’s debut season in the ASUN.

5. Warrick’s encore? As a Northern Kentucky University freshman in 2020-21, ex-Henry Clay star Marques Warrick had a banner season.

The 6-2, 170-pound Warrick averaged 15.8 points for Coach Darrin Horn and was named Horizon League Freshman of the Year.

However, late last season, defenders started to play the willowy Warrick with extreme physicality.

The question for Warrick in 2021-22 is whether he has developed an offensive counter to such defensive tactics?

4. Rhyne’s three-peat? The Kentucky women’s basketball star enters what is presumably the final season of her college career having already secured status as one of the five best — three best? — women’s hoops players ever to play in the commonwealth.

The Cleveland, Tenn., product still has major accomplishments in grasp, too.

Howard could win the SEC Player of the Year Award for a third-straight time.

She enters 2021-22 with 1,655 career points. With a “normal” season, Howard figures to pass A’dia Mathies (2,014) for second on the all-time UK Hoops scoring list behind Valerie Still (2,763).

Howard will seek to lead UK to its first trip to the NCAA Tournament round of 16 since 2016.

A Final Four trip would be Kentucky’s first.

3. Broome’s encore? A season ago, Johni Broome was one of men’s college basketball’s most unexpected success stories.

An unheralded recruit out of Plant City, Fla., the 6-foot-10, 235-pound Broome led Morehead State (23-8) to its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2011.

In a stellar freshman season, Broome produced 13 double-doubles and averaged 13.8 points and 9.0 rebounds for Coach Preston Spradlin’s Eagles.

With Morehead expected to again battle for OVC supremacy, can Broome continue to ascend?

2. Mack’s late start. The Louisville men’s basketball team will officially begin its season Nov. 9 against Southern.

Cardinals Coach Chris Mack will start his season Dec. 1 vs. Michigan State.

Mack is suspended for the first six games of the regular season for, the university said, failing to follow human resources protocols in how he informed assistant coach Dino Gaudio he would not be retained.

That decision set off a series of explosive events that culminated with Gaudio pleading guilty to extortion for threatening to reveal NCAA violations committed by Louisville on Mack’s watch if not financially compensated.

The NCAA subsequently charged the U of L program with the alleged rules-violations revealed in Gaudio’s legal case — that the Cardinals used assistant coaches and team managers to participate in practices and created impermissible videos for recruits.

While serving his near three-week suspension, Mack will lose around $221,000 in salary.

For those first six games, assistant Mike Pegues will run the Cardinals program.

To be determined is whether any of this has a long-term impact on a season important to the arc of the Louisville program.

1. A very different blueprint for Calipari. Having presided over, arguably, the worst season (9-16) in Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball history in 2020-21, John Calipari needed a quick fix.

To achieve it, the coach most closely associated with the one-and-done phenomenon chose an unconventional route: Veterans from the transfer portal.

In 2021-22, Kentucky may field the most experienced roster in its history.

Players on the current UK roster have started 367 college basketball games.

The roster that won Kentucky’s 1995-96 NCAA championship returned 233 career starts.

UK’s 1997-98 NCAA title team began that season with 164 career college starts.

A veteran-laden roster getting “the one-and-done program” back on track in 2021-22 would be a delicious twist.

This story was originally published November 5, 2021 at 7:24 AM.

Mark Story

Lexington Herald-Leader

859-444-4731

Mark Story has worked in the Lexington Herald-Leader sports department since Aug. 27, 1990, and has been a Herald-Leader sports columnist since 2001. I have covered every Kentucky-Louisville football game since 1994, every UK-U of L basketball game but three since 1996-97 and every Kentucky Derby since 1994. Support my work with a digital subscription