Does Mark Stoops have the best basketball shot of anyone on the football team?

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey bragged on Mark Stoops' basketball skills at SEC Media Days. (Vicky Graff Photo)

Sometimes you can learn an interesting tidbit or two about a player or coach during the Southeastern Conference Football Media Days during several hours of questioning from various media members.

However, one of the more unusual topics brought up about Kentucky coach Mark Stoops came from SEC commissioner Greg Sankey — and it was about basketball.

“While it’s been a while since Mark’s college days, I understand he can still show some athletic ability between playing golf, most importantly showing a smooth and effective basketball jump shot during summer outings either with or against his football players,” Sankey said during his introduction of Stoops.

“If you understand the competitive spirit, I’m sure it’s against because that’s competition.”

Stoops later was asked if he modeled his hoops game after a specific player. He quickly laughed and said no. Then he explained how Sankey knew about his basketball prowess.”

“He caught me one time, I had to promote it a little bit. I had to brag because we have a cookout on every Wednesday during the summer because I don’t like to get too disconnected from the players,” Stoops said.

“What we do is the coaches, if they’re on vacation, they’re gone, fine, they take their time. If they’re in town, we all get together on Wednesdays, get behind the grill, cook, don’t cater it in. Then we play a bunch of backyard games and have some fun.”

“This day they took some snapshots of the H-0-R-S-E game. I happened to win. I bragged about it, then I quit playing.”

Smart move. That’s like hitting the jackpot at the casino and then walking away with the money.

“They tried to get me (to play) the next week, but I know better than that,” Stoops said. “I got fortunate one day and beat some talented guys. I’m going to retire that for the summer.”