Former Kentucky star Scott Padgett hired as Samford basketball coach

The Samford Bulldogs have made a pretty big splash. With the departure of Bennie Seltzer, the program has now named former Kentucky Wildcats star, Scott Padgett, as their new head basketball coach.

Padgett, a former first-round NBA Draft pick, played under Rick Pitino and Tubby Smith. He also was an assistant coach under John Calipari at Kentucky as well as Steve Masiello at Manhattan. Meaning, Scott Padgett has been around his fair share of really good basketball minds and has been groomed to eventually be a head coach somewhere.

The school announced the hiring in a release, where Padgett discussed the opportunity to be at the helm:

"“I’m very excited to have the opportunity to be the head coach at Samford University and to coach these outstanding young men. This program is going to be all about our players; former, current and future. It’s going to be about promoting the mission of this great university and helping these young men in their academic, athletic and spiritual growth.”"

Padgett also went on to discuss what type of style Samford hoops will be playing:

"“We’re going to play an exciting brand of basketball here at Samford, similar to the style I played under Rick Pitino and Tubby Smith at the University of Kentucky. We are going to press, get up and down the court for 40 minutes and wear down the opposition. It’s going to be a playing style that recruits, current players and fans will love.”"

I am not going to pretend like I know what this means, but this is definitely going to be fun to follow. I have now become a weird, new Samford Bulldogs basketball fan!