Karl-Anthony Towns honors '14-15 teammates (and the N64) in UK return: "We made the Hall of Fame."

With the spotlight on Karl-Anthony Towns in his induction into the UK Athletics Hall of Fame, the five-time NBA All-Star deflected the attention toward his Kentucky teammates. And not just the names you’d expect in Devin Booker, Willie Cauley-Stein, Andrew and Aaron Harrison, Trey Lyles and Tyler Ulis — the list goes on. He wanted Sam Malone, Tod Lanter, EJ Floreal and Brian Long to get the same love for their work behind the scenes in the 2014-15 team’s pursuit of perfection.

In his eyes, the Wildcats don’t start the year 38-0 and make it to the Final Four without those guys. Towns received the trophy and his name is individually listed, but they’re going in together as a team.

“I know you guys are waiting for me to say I made the Hall of Fame, but we made the Hall of Fame,” Towns said prior to the ceremony in Lexington on Friday. “This is me just representing my whole team, the coaching staff that was with me, and all the amazing fans that supported us. For us to make the Hall of Fame is really important, and I think that it just speaks volumes to the legacy we were all able to leave here as a team.”

If he had it his way, all 16 players on that roster would be on stage with him, inducted as a team. The entire coaching staff would be sitting in the front row of the audience — and he still got Ellen and Brad Calipari there to support with Coach Cal meeting up with him at Jeff Ruby’s afterward to respectfully avoid becoming the headline.

That’s just how that historic group operates: together.

They couldn’t have finished the regular season with a perfect 31-0 record, won the SEC or SEC Tournament or made it to the Final Four without that crucial trait.

“It just feels weird, you know, when you’re not doing this with all of them,” Towns said. “We were always a brotherhood, and I think that all of y’all who have been around us when we were here know, we were a very close-knit team. I say that with my whole heart: this is not just me making the Hall of Fame, it’s us. We’ve made the Hall of Fame, and I’m just here to represent all the amazing brothers I got to play with, the amazing coaching staff we had, and the amazing fans who showed us the love and support.

“You needed that on those days when — for the few times when I was here — the games were close. So we had to get it together, and the fans really showed up for us and got us over the edge when we needed to win against those opponents.”

That team was known for its blue and white platoons, boasting two lineups of starter-quality talent with nine total players going on to play in the NBA — and three more playing professionally overseas. It’s maybe the greatest collection of talent college basketball has ever seen, and it led to winning at the highest level for 38 consecutive games, a mark that has never been touched and may never again. That one season-ending loss will haunt the program forever, but it doesn’t take away all of the magic that group managed up to that point.

It wasn’t a simple math equation for Towns, though. You can’t just sign nine McDonald’s All-Americans and expect to win every time you step on the floor the way his team did. It took a level of sacrifice that very few players of their caliber are willing to make.

That’s what made him — and them — Hall of Fame worthy.

“At the end of the day, assembling talent and having talent work together are two different things,” Towns told KSR. “There have been many teams in college basketball that have a tremendous amount of talent, but they just didn’t come together. They couldn’t work with each other. I think what makes us so special is the amount of sacrifice to have someone like D-Book — who now the whole Kentucky team is wearing his shoes — be on the bench for our team.

“It just shows the depth our team had that everyone knows here, obviously, but it shows the sacrifice everyone was willing to make that we were willing to get Kentucky and Lexington wins more than what we thought would raise our draft stocks.”

That prepared them for the NBA, which is why so many of them are either still playing there — Towns and Booker at All-Star levels — or professionally overseas. The former averaged 10.3 points per game as a one-and-done, and now, he’s the face of the New York Knicks averaging 24.4 points per game as an All-NBA member.

Funny how that works.

“In essence, us sacrificing for each other and for Lexington rolls all of our draft stocks to a level that I don’t think many of us could have thought of — let alone for me, being able to be the number one pick,” he told KSR. “I don’t know if there’s another number one pick that averaged 10 points a game, but I’m glad that my brothers and the amazing coaching staff, when it was my turn to enter the NBA, I was able to show my talent. 

“I did here, and I was able to show even more in the NBA. I had the chance to have the career I’ve had so far in the NBA. 

Towns led the Knicks to the Eastern Conference Finals and has championship dreams, obviously, but this honor is one that means just as much as any he’s earned in his basketball career. That’s because everything he’s done and continues to do in the league is a direct result of what those Wildcats accomplished together during that historic season.

And now they get to celebrate it all as Hall of Famers, together.

“This is up there, of course. You always want to be able to cement yourself with the greats here,” Towns said. “And like I said, in my whole heart, I feel that I’m entering with my brothers. This is something that we, as a team, earned. And we, as a team, we’ll finish this chapter and finish this book together. I refuse to go up there and say that I’ve made the Hall of Fame. It’s a we thing. We made it to the Hall of Fame.

“Us, our coaching staff, the amazing fans, again, that I can’t thank enough for this opportunity to play for them in the year I was here.”

He wanted to give one last shoutout to an unlikely recipient — of the virtual variety, interestingly enough. Remember those stories of the Wildcats playing Super Smash Bros. all season, bringing the Nintendo 64 with them everywhere they went? They wouldn’t have been so close as a team without video games keeping that competitive fire hot in the dorms and hotel rooms from the Bahamas to the Final Four.

Come on, N64. You’re going into the HOF, too.

“Shoutout to the Nintendo 64 that made it with us as well.”