Jeff Hurd | Former WAC Commissioner | Keith Van Horn, Larry Bird Stories and More

08/19/22 • 57 min

Today we’re going to talk with retired Western Athletic Conference commissioner Jeff Hurd about where college hoops has been and where it could be going.
Jeff spent nearly 5 decades in college athletics, beginning with a stint as the sports information director at the University of Tulsa before serving as the director of public relations for the Missouri Valley Conference.
The Missouri grad spent his last 37 years, however, with the Western Athletic Conference, the last 10 as its commissioner, and in that time the WAC might have undergone as much change as any Division I conference.
Jeff joins us today to discuss his memories of the Missouri Valley Conference, when a Larry Bird-led Indiana State team charged into the national title game in 1979, to his favorite college basketball moments over the last 40-plus years before we get his thoughts on the future of college hoops amid major changes in the collegiate athletics landscape.
Jeff, thanks for joining us on the 19nine podcast.

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Today we’re going to talk with retired Western Athletic Conference commissioner Jeff Hurd about where college hoops has been and where it could be going.
Jeff spent nearly 5 decades in college athletics, beginning with a stint as the sports information director at the University of Tulsa before serving as the director of public relations for the Missouri Valley Conference.
The Missouri grad spent his last 37 years, however, with the Western Athletic Conference, the last 10 as its commissioner, and in that time the WAC might have undergone as much change as any Division I conference.
Jeff joins us today to discuss his memories of the Missouri Valley Conference, when a Larry Bird-led Indiana State team charged into the national title game in 1979, to his favorite college basketball moments over the last 40-plus years before we get his thoughts on the future of college hoops amid major changes in the collegiate athletics landscape.
Jeff, thanks for joining us on the 19nine podcast.

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Welcome to the 19nine podcast. In this episode we take another deep dive into Big Blue Nation and University of Kentucky hoops, this time with two-time NCAA champion Cameron Mills.
The son of former Kentucky Wildcat Terry Mills, Cameron grew up in Lexington, starring at Dunbar High before shunning D1 scholarship offers and matriculating to Kentucky in 1994 as a walk-on for the Wildcats and head coach Rick Pitino.
Today, we’re going to talk with the 6-3 sharpshooter about his journey to Kentucky and the first of his two national championship teams at UK – the loaded 1995-96 squad that featured 9 – that’s right, 9 – NBA players. That dominant Kentucky team went 34-2, culminating with a 9-point win over Syracuse in the title game.

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Hail State! On this episode of the 19nine Podcast, we’re traveling back to the 1995-1996 college basketball season, when Iverson and Allen dazzled at The Garden, Kentucky stocked its roster with 9 future NBA players, Coach Cal led UMass to national prominence, The Macarena was the year’s hit song, and a Mississippi State squad led by Darryl Wilson, Dontae’ Jones, and 16-year NBA veteran Erick Dampier crashed the Final Four.
To talk about the Bulldogs’ memorable March Madness run, we’re joined today by two rotation players on that team – Whit Hughes and Bart Hyche.
A 5-11 freshman on the 1996 squad, Bart played in 31 games that season, including all five of the Bulldogs’ NCAA Tournament games.
Whit, meanwhile, was a 6-5 sophomore forward who played in all 34 contests for the Bulldogs’ Final Four squad.
We’re going to chat with Whit and Bart about their respective journeys to Starkville, playing basketball at a school where football reigns supreme, the Mississippi State-Ole Miss rivalry, taking down Big Blue Nation in the SEC Tournament, and earning the first – and still only – Final Four berth in school history.

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