Kentucky makes The Athletic's list of worst uniforms of all time... Twice

The Kentucky basketball program got a pat on the back from The Athletic earlier this week, as the sports website included the Wildcats’ 2010-14 uniforms in its list of the best uniforms of all time. Now, that praise feels long gone, as The Athletic also included a few UK basketball uniforms on its list of worst uniforms of all time. The article’s writer, Brian Bennett, included not one, but two Kentucky uniforms near the top of the list – in this case, the “top” of the list is a bad thing.

Kentucky’s cat scratch/icicle shorts from 1994-95 (pictured above) came in at No. 5, with Bennett calling them “something out of Joe Exotic’s closet.” The article also includes commentary from former Cat Tony Delk, who says he struggled with almost all of his team’s uniforms.

“I never liked any of them,” Delk says now. “I know things have to change. It’s kind of like music, how it changes from decade to decade. Styles change from decade to decade too. But those are a couple of uniforms that should have stayed out of the decades.”

Then, there were the denim uniforms in 1996, which came in at No. 2. While some Kentucky fans may remember these uniforms fondly because of the season’s ultimate outcome, Delk doesn’t look back with the same feelings.

(Doug Pensinger /Allsport via Getty Images)

“Those things were awful, man,” Delk says in the article.

The team’s current uniforms didn’t make it onto either list, but the writers who ranked the best uniforms said “compared to all of the checkerboard stuff happening on Kentucky’s current uniforms, these [2010-14 uniforms] practically belong in the MoMA.” Hard to disagree with that.

To hear the story of how those denim uniforms came to be, and to see the complete list (including some that are really horrendous), check out the full article here.