5-9-12 —    As you'll notice, shortly after UK captured its national basketball title in New Orleans on April 2, several special publications flooded the retail establishments, celebrating the school's eighth NCAA crown.

    According to my count, there are at least eight commemorative-type publications on the Wildcats' memorable 38-2 run during the 2011-12 campaign.

    So things are really buzzing in the Big Blue Nation in a big way.  

The happy fans are in love with the championship Cats.

    And we hardly did have anything like it—the numerous collector's editions—back then in 1978, which was Kentucky's last national basketball championship during the pre-ESPN and pre-Internet days.  

Remember I'm not referring to the regular weekly editions of Sports Illustrated and The Sporting News which obviously had coverage on UK's title victory over Duke in St. Louis.

    The only two special publications on Kentucky's 30-2 national title squad of 1977-78 that I have in my possession are:

    • "University of Kentucky Basketball Scrapbook" which was filled with copies of actual reprints of newspaper columns and game stories appearing in the Lexington Herald and now-defunct Lexington Leader along with selected articles from the other newspapers of UK's opponents in Knoxville, Athens, Ga., Starkville, Miss., among others.

    • "A Year At The Top: Kentucky Wildcats ‘77-'78" is a 144-page, pictorial paperback with stories written by John McGill and Walt Johnson and was published by Jim Host & Associates Inc.

    If there were other similar publications on the 1978 Wildcats, I simply just missed them.

    Times have dramatically changed as far as UK roundball exposure is concerned, according to ex-Kentucky All-American Jack "Goose" Givens.

    "The changes from ‘78 to now have been huge as far as the coverage from national media and publications," said Givens, who hit an eye- popping 41 points in the 1978 NCAA title contest. "The national coverage now far, far exceeds the coverage in ‘78."

    Birmingham, Ala. based Lindy's Sports (lindyssports.com) has published a colorful commemorative publication on UK's latest NCAA title, which also includes brief write-ups about the school's other national and SEC championship teams, including Givens' 1978 team.

    "It's always great to be remembered and talked about as part of the great UK history," commented Givens, who lives in Florida. "One of the great things about winning a championship is that other great teams are going to be compared to our team.

    "It's fun to discuss with fans which team is the best and how our team would match up against teams like this year's team. I, of course, think our team would have done very well against this team because of our size, experience and depth, but someone else might say just the opposite. This (2011-12 squad) was a great team and certainly was the best team in the country this year, but they said the same thing about our ‘78 team."

    There are other commemorative pieces on the 2011-12 Wildcats that the Big Blue faithful will enjoy.

    The Cats' Pause (magazine.catspause.com) published a nice-looking commemorative issue, titled "Celebr8!", which is filled with excellent color photography and 19 short essay-like chapters.

    Rylin Media (rylinmedia.com), which specializes in producing the first-to-market championship books (such as the Royal Wedding, 2011 World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals, among others), has a nice commemorative issue about Kentucky ("Class from the Bluegrass"), including the non-typical pictures that I haven't seen.

    Chicago's Triumph Books (triumphbooks.com) has a commemorative paperback titled "Elite Eighth." Along with excellent photography, it contains fine articles written by two of my Rupp Arena press row colleagues Larry Vaught (no relation to yours truly) and Keith Taylor.

    Like Sports Illustrated's special issues on other pro or college championship teams in the past, the magazine as usual produced a remarkable product on UK's banner season.

    These five commemorative keepsakes cost anywhere from $7.99 to $14.95, and are expected to be around for another month or so on the newsstands.

    In addition, there are other special Wildcat publications, including ones by the Lexington Herald-Leader and Louisville Courier-Journal, that I've not seen.

    On the modern-day Cats, Givens added, "They have much more coverage in print, and if you add the Internet coverage it's almost impossible to keep up with everything."

    The Wildcat great is certainly right on target, and I'm beginning to lose track of these special Kentucky magazines. Whew! But if you are  

a big Wildcat follower, they are nevertheless fun to glance through.    

    Jamie H. Vaught, whose syndicated sports column currently appears in Kentucky newspapers, is the author of four books about UK basketball.  

He is currently a professor at Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College in Middlesboro and can be reached by e-mail at jamiehv22@gmail.com.