- Nottingham Forest edges Sheffield United to advance to EFL Championship Playoff FinalPosted 1 week ago
- Zaila Avant-garde, at 14, is spelling champion, math whiz, and hoop phenomPosted 9 months ago
- Simone Fontecchio, Maodo Lo among non-NBA players outshining NBA stars at OlympicsPosted 10 months ago
- The Former Basketball Player Who Blew the Whistle on Bill CosbyPosted 10 months ago
- Finals Preview: Which matchups will determine Suns-Bucks winner?Posted 11 months ago
- UConn was first college in New England with five African-American starters; one of Dee Rowe’s coaching legaciesPosted 11 months ago
- California high school basketball program penalized, and its coach fired for tortilla-throwing incident deemed as racistPosted 11 months ago
- Miami Heat and Marlins provided help after the disastrous condo collapsePosted 11 months ago
- Mike Krzyzewski’s decision to retire leads us to research his basketball life before becoming coach at DukePosted 12 months ago
- John Thompson once took a high school team he coached off the court in protest over the officiating, yet it is rarely included as part of his legacyPosted 1 year ago
UConn fans beaming with pride as Kemba Walker becomes Charlotte Hornets’ all-time leading scorer
- Updated: March 29, 2018

Kemba Walker became the Charlotte Hornets’ all-time leading scorer on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)
It’s been a while since Kemba Walker was in a UConn jersey, bouncing around and knocking down step-backs that ended the careers of Pittsburgh big men, or astutely flopping on the way to the huddle, spelling doom for Kawhi Leonard and San Diego State.
The last image Huskies fans have of Kemba is probably the one where he’s standing at the podium in Gampel Pavilion, resplendent in his fresh “No. 1” national champs hat and t-shirt, fighting back tears in front of 10,000 adoring fans as a banner unfurled to reveal his name added to the “Huskies of Honor.”
Kemba was only a junior then, but that was his Senior Night moment. Everyone knew it was time for him to head off to the NBA. He had just authored one of the greatest underdog runs in NCAA history, first willing a group of freshmen to five wins in five days in the Big East tournament, and then to six more in the NCAAs, culminating in the most improbable and unexpectedly euphoric title in school history.
At 20 years old, Kemba had become a state legend, like Nathan Hale, Ethan Allan, or that Louis guy who claims he invented the cheeseburger. Except, unlike those Revolutionary War dudes, people actually remember what he did.
Since Kemba left, his step-back against Pitt has been memorialized as a Huskies holiday. Its dedication took place on Twitter, where fans post gifs to celebrate its anniversary, or just periodically throughout the year, whenever they need a little “Cardiac Kemba!”
Every Huskies fan in the state would have revered Walker no matter what he did in the pros–whether he became a Hall of Famer, or flamed out and just started tearing hamstrings in the Big3.
Instead, Kemba’s only continued on the meteoric path he’s been following since he picked up a basketball, becoming a perennial NBA All-Star, and because he plays in Charlotte, one of the league’s most under-appreciated standouts.
On Wednesday night, he passed Dell Curry to become the Hornets’ all-time leading scorer, with 9,841 career points.
Kemba Walker drives in for the lay-in to pass Dell Curry and become the @hornets franchise all-time leading scorer! #BuzzCity pic.twitter.com/HDav9DhaKH
— NBA (@NBA) March 29, 2018
It’s hard to put into words the pride that Connecticut feels for Kemba–even as he looks into the camera with his “Buzz City” jersey on, fans in Charlotte cheering him on as one of their own, as if they could ever appreciate him the way those of us who grew up in Tolland or Torrington or Coventry do.
ICYMI: Kemba Walker got emotional when he became the Hornets’ all-time leading scorer. pic.twitter.com/ROQydOkOXp
— ESPN (@espn) March 29, 2018
It’s been seven years since he willed the Huskies to that stirring national title, and with limited fanfare, he’s already etched his name into the NBA record books. He’ll forever be mentioned as one of the greats in Charlotte Hornets history.
Watch Kemba today and you’ll see a grown-up version of his dizzying, inventive, Rucker Park-holding game. He’s exponentially better, with sixth-sense handle; impossibly skilled, and impossible to stay in front of. And now, at 27, he’s just as relentless as he was when he wouldn’t go away in the NCAA Tournament. It’s just–he doesn’t have the supporting cast to facilitate a 2011-type run through the NBA playoffs.
Kemba has already accomplished more in the pros than many ever thought plausible at 6-1, 160-plus pounds coming out of Connecticut.
But no matter where his NBA journey takes him, Walker’s biggest fans are always going to be tucked along the northeast corridor.
Like Nathan Hale, the name Kemba Walker will always mean something in Connecticut.
And that name, like the names Dell Curry and Larry Johnson, Richard Hamilton and Khalid El-Amin, puts Kemba in good company.