The implosion of the University of Louisville men's basketball program with the subsequent ousters of Rick Pitino and Tom Jurich was the dominant story of the 2017-18 college sports year in Kentucky.
Yet college athletics in the commonwealth in 2017-18 supplied its share of uplift, too.
Football gave Kentuckians a final year of watching the brilliance of Lamar Jackson and the grit of Stephen Johnson at quarterback.
Louisville women's basketball made its third all-time Final Four trip.
The Murray State and Western Kentucky men's hoops programs enjoyed renaissances, the former reaching the NCAA Tournament, the latter making the NIT semifinals.