Joe B. Hall Says Ralph Sampson "Told Me He Was Going to Come to Kentucky"

Oh, what could have been…

In an awesome sitdown interview between former Kentucky head coach Joe B. Hall and current head coach John Calipari, Hall discusses how future Hall of Famer, Ralph Sampson, was going to commit to the Wildcats before he ultimately ended up at Virginia.

“Ralph Sampson was an exciting player that I almost had, ” Coach Hall tells us. “I had [Sam] Bowie and [Melvin] Turpin call him on the phone, begging him to come and be apart of this program… He was here on campus for two weeks, and he loved it, and he told me he was going to come to Kentucky.”

*Skip to the 35:19 mark to hear the exchange.*

Sampson would ultimately join the Virginia Cavaliers, where he won three consecutive National Player of the Year awards but made it to just one Final Four during his collegiate career. As the story goes, Sampson was torn between UK and UVA when it came to making a choice, stating during his press conference that he still hadn’t made up his mind the morning of his decision.

“The last couple days I didn’t know what to do,” Sampson said during his announcement back in 1979. “You know. I changed my mind at least 50 times.”

The frontline duo of Bowie and Sampson could have been one of the best to ever play the sport. You could argue that Kentucky might have another championship or two had the 7-foot-4 big man came to Lexington instead of staying close to home.

Another infamous “what if?”

In the interview, Hall said he also had a shot at landing Moses Malone – a 13-time NBA All-Star and Hall of Famer –  but eventually lost him to the NBA – not much he could do there. The same goes for Darryl Dawkins, who would also go straight to the NBA after initially telling coach Hall he was coming to Kentucky.