News broke Tuesday that John Wall has officially called it a career and retired from basketball. That brought up plenty of nostalgia around the BBN as plenty reminisced on the stellar season that saw No. 11 rocking the Kentucky blue and white.
It also brought up some players talking about the impact Wall had on their careers or even decisions to attend UK for the lone collegiate season.
One of the best tributes came from former Wildcat and John Wall’s teammate, DeMarcus Cousins. On a recent episode of the All the Smoke podcast, Cousins gave a cool story and a look at the relationship between the former teammates.
“At this point, I’m at a new stage of my life at Kentucky, still not confident. I ain’t on no draft boards or no **** like that,” Cousins said. “At this point, I still don’t know how to be a professional. ****, I don’t really know how to be a collegiate athlete. I’m just going with the flow. I’m learning through trials and tribulations. I still don’t have this person I can call and be like, ‘Hey, how do I need to do this? Who do I learn from?‘
“I learn from my roommate, John Wall. I’m looking at how John Wall carries himself. I told him this when we were in Houston, we were having a guys’ night. I said, ‘5, I’ve never told you this story before. I learned from you how to prepare myself for this next level.’”
Hearing Boogie open up about their relationship is awesome. For many in their mid-20’s to mid 30’s, Wall and Cousins are some of the first teams they can remember taking the court for the Cats. They made Kentucky cool again. Now you add in this story, and their lore grows even more.
Let’s hope we will now see Wall in Lexington more going forward.