Kentucky sophomore golfer Cathryn Brown has had a terrific start to her spring season with a tie for fourth at the Paradise Invitational in Boca Raton, Florida, and a third-place finish at the Spartan Sun Coast Invitational in Sarasota, Florida.

Brown and teammate Karlie Campbell both had 5-under par scores to share fourth at the Paradise Invitational. That was Brown’s best collegiate finish for the former Lyon County High School standout before she led after 36 holes at the Spartan Sun Coast Invitational and ended up third. She had rounds of 68, 69 and 75 to finish 4-under par and had 13 birdies in the 54-hole event to earn SEC Golfer of the Week honors.

Brown’s brother, Cullan, also played at the University of Kentucky. He had four top-20 finishes to make the all-SEC freshman team and tied for 53rd in the PGA Tour’s Barbasol Championship. He was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer after his freshman season and died at age 20 in 2020.

Emma Talley is a former three-time Kentucky state high school champion at Caldwell County and NCAA champion at Alabama who recently retired after seven years on the LPGA Tour. She’s been life-long friends with the Brown family.

“I don’t think enough people are talking about Cathryn and what she has done this season,” Talley said. “She didn’t even really start getting serious about golf until she was about 14 when Cullan passed and she has been playing some great golf.”

Cathryn Brown had played basketball at Lyon County and always thought that was her best sport, even though her brother constantly noted she would be an even better golfer than him if she concentrated on golf.

“Life is unfair and Cullan should still be here,” Talley said. “It was sad that cancer took his life so fast. I saw him the week before his passing and he was still making me laugh. He was the same guy right to the end. COVID was so bad, but that also let me be home several months that summer and I was able to spend a good amount of time with him which I am grateful for.

“It hurts my heart every single day that he is not here. It is very strange how life works, but I am so proud of Cathryn and how she handles herself and how hard she works.”

Talley, who was also a U.S. Amateur champion, won over $1.4 million on the LPGA Tour with 10 top-10 finishes and 22 top-25 finishes against the world’s best golfers.

“I think Cathryn could be on the tour one day,” Talley said about the UK sophomore golfer. “She hits it way longer than I ever did. She is an elite athlete. That’s why I say not enough people are talking about her and the start to this season.

“She just continues to get better and is actually even a little hurt right now, but playing through it. I am really excited for her and what lies ahead.”

Brown hurt her wrist and thumb in UK’s opening match, but the Cats do not play again until the Darius Rucker Invitational from March 3-5 in Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Cathryn Brown won various high school invitationals, including the Cullan Brown Invitational, and twice finished in the top three at the state high school championship. However, Talley knows not everyone thought she could succeed at Kentucky.

“Some people thought she was crazy for picking Kentucky and was not good enough to play in the SEC,” Talley said. “She has proven that wrong. She is playing in the No. 1 spot and is where she needs to be.”

Even though Cathryn Brown was not obsessed with golf like her brother and Talley were, golf always came naturally to her.

“She is such a natural athlete and is so good at anything she does,” the former LPGA player said. “It’s great to see her creating her own legacy. But I can remember me and Cullan would be practicing and she would pick up a putter and beat us both putting.

“I am so happy for her and what she’s doing. I know Cullan is watching from above and is proud of her. She works really hard like he always wanted her to do. She has the dedication to golf you have to have to be good. She’s really fun to watch play.”

The UK sophomore also enjoys interacting with fans before, during and after rounds. Talley was the same way her whole career, but so was Cullan Brown.

“Cullan was so nice to people and was so outgoing,” Talley said. “He acted like a 50-year-old man, but he loved everybody. Cathryn followed in his footsteps just fine and that just makes the success she is having even more special to her and all of us whoever knew and loved Cullan.”

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Before Travis Perry made his first collegiate start at Texas, he got a pep talk from Kentucky men’s basketball coach Mark Pope that included video clips of what he had done well this season.

“Just kind of reiterating the confidence he has in me to play that role,” Perry said.

The state’s all-time leading high school scorer has been thrust into a much bigger role his freshman season than anticipated because of injuries to Lamont Butler, Jaxson Robinson and Kerr Kriisa.

“He’s fearless and he goes about his business,” Pope said. “He’s going to make some mistakes because he’s young, and everybody makes mistakes in this game. But he’s fully capable. He’s unbelievably confident – really, really aggressive. He’s made huge plays in huge games for us.”

Perry is always a fan favorite because of his Lyon County roots along with winning a state high school championship and being named Kentucky Mr. Basketball after his senior season. However, Pope has held him accountable from day one just like he has the fifth-year players on the team and that has helped Perry.

“I know my confidence has grown a ton. Just getting more comfortable out there. Filling in a different spot at the college level is a pretty tall task. I’ve been blessed with opportunities, but also cursed with opportunities for our team,” Perry said. “We’ve got guys that are great basketball players that are missing some games. But I think it’s gonna make us better for March.

“For all the guys like me, Trent (Noah) that are getting a lot of minutes now – come March, we’ll be ready, we’ll be confident. It’s helped me grow into a college basketball player like I need to be.”

Perry committed to Kentucky when John Calipari was still the coach. After Calipari left, Pope reached out and Perry attended Pope’s introductory news conference. It did not take Perry long to make it clear he wanted to play for Pope.

“Off the court, he’s a great dude. He’s always there for you. It’s not always just basketball with him. He talks about family, everything like that,” the UK freshman said. “On the confidence side of it, that’s something you need from a coach.

“I think anybody needs it from a coach, whether they’re a freshman coming in that is playing extended minutes now because of injuries, or whether it’s a fifth-year guy that’s played and started every game of his career. They still need confidence instilled in them and he does a great job of that.

“He tells us when we mess up and we need to get better. But he also shows us that we’ve done it many times before, and how much confidence he has in us to do it again. So that’s something that’s really important.”

Perry had 12 points and four steals, both career highs, in UK’s loss at Alabama.

“Travis is such a baller. He is a guy who a bad play does not affect his next play and that is important for young players to understand,” ESPN analyst Jimmy Dykes said. “Mark Pope says he is the best on the team at flushing out a bad play.”

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Former Kentucky guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is having another outstanding season for the Oklahoma City Thunder and is one of the leading candidates for Most Valuable Player honors midway of the season.

The Oklahoma City point guard is averaging 32.5 points, 6.1 assists and 5.1 rebounds per game this season and shooting 52.3% from the field. Only in his seventh season in the league, he has scored 10,530 points and handed out 2,198 assists. He’s pulled off 2,103 rebounds and also has 634 steals and 346 blocks in 439 games.

At the all-star game, he was asked about possibly being one of the future faces of the NBA as players like LeBron James and Steph Curry near the ends of their careers.

“It’s cool. It’s something that we as players normally kind of don’t really have full control over. That’s literally for the world to decide, and whoever the world gravitates to is going to become it naturally,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.

“Now, it’s something that would obviously be – it’s not really like a title, it’s more of an opinion, but it is something that is for sure surreal. If you’re in that conversation, if you’re amongst those guys, you are a very, very, very good basketball player and will probably go down in history, and to be in that conversation is a blessing.”

James and Curry have both won NBA championships. Gilgeous-Alexander has not. He knows he needs a title to elevate his status as one of the league’s top players.

“You play the game to win, and at the end of the day, all that really matters. If you don’t win, or in my mind if you don’t win, you lost and if you lost, you failed,” the Oklahoma City star said. “Now you learn through those failures and losses, but ultimately, I wake up in the morning to win, and if I don’t succeed in that in my career, I will have never accomplished what I wanted to.”

•••

Georgia Amoore did not take the typical AAU route to become a college star like most American players have. Instead, growing up in Australia and playing international basketball was a far different experience for the Kentucky point guard.

“Just growing up playing internationally, I played against women since I was a kid,” Amoore said.

She noted UK teammates Clara Silva and Amelia Hassett did the same thing and it is different.

“I grew up playing against women who screamed at me because they weren’t gonna deal with a kid. That was the women’s jobs, their side hustles. They were playing basketball, but they weren’t earning a big bag (of money) for it and they weren’t going to deal with little kids playing,” Amoore said.

“So I think maturity-wise, I could take adversity. I can take hard coaching and I’m sure those other internationals will speak for that too. We didn’t grow up in a society where there were highlight tapes or kids were getting hyped up from an early age.

“I had absolutely none of that. So I think it’s different (overseas). It’s a very different culture, but you know, it gives us a chance to succeed.”

•••

Quote of the Week: “The more comfortable he gets on the floor where he can do some things on the court that are unique for us that are going to be really impactful. He can be a guy that you watch down the stretch once we get to tournament play that is a difference maker,” Mark Pope, on freshman guard Collin Chandler.

Quote of the Week 2: “I feel like a lot of great shooters, a lot of great players, some of the greats to play this game have won this award – not award, this competition. Just happy to put my name in the history books for All-Star Weekend,” former UK guard Tyler Herro of the Miami Heat, after winning the NBA All-Star 3-point contest.

Quote of the Week 3: “He makes a lot of money for a coach who hasn’t had a good season in a while. He’s had, if I remember correctly, three inconsistent years out of four. But the program, to me, looks like it’s spiraling out of control. This is one show that has always been supportive of him, but I really don’t like what we’re seeing,” SEC Network host Paul Finebaum, on Mark Stoops and the UK football program.