Craig Skinner has Developed a Culture that Demands Excellence

Craig Skinner (Vicky Graff Photo)

If there is one given at Kentucky, it is that coach Craig Skinner is going to have an elite team every year.

He has been Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year six times since 2015. His team has won eight straight SEC championships and earned a NCAA Tournament seed the last seven years.

Of course, Skinner led UK to the 2020 national championship, the only time a SEC school has ever won a national title.

Skinner has UK beat in the Sweet 16 after the Cats, a No. 3 seed, beat Minnesota 3-1 Friday. Kentucky will play Missouri, a team it beat twice during the season, in the regional semifinals in Pittsburgh. A win would likely put UK against No. 1 Pitt, a team many expect to win the national title, in the regional final.

So what makes Skinner so good? Kentucky’s eight straight SEC titles are the longest streak of any Power 4 school. The Cats have also won 13 straight matches.

“I think he’s an unbelievable student of the game. He’s absolutely amazing in making adjustments,” UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart said. “He finds people that fit his system and just he’s got a really tremendous staff around him.

“He’s developed a culture that demands excellence. He just keeps doing it. I mean, players sometimes change, but the culture doesn’t through injuries and everything we had this year and where we started with the hard, hard schedule that he put together to develop his team.”

Barnhart said winning eight straight SEC titles is “cool and really amazing”  no matter the sport.

“I don’t care whether you’re playing intramural football or whatever, eight straight of anything is hard to do, and eight straight in this league is really hard to do. I’d say almost impossible. Super proud of them,” Barnhart said.  “I’m sure it’s been done in many sports in our league, I probably have to go back and do the math and see if it’s been done. I can’t imagine that it has been.”

Florida actually won 20 straight volleyball championships but that was before the overall SEC bought into volleyball and Kentucky became the dominant team. That streak continued this year even though two-time defending national champion Texas joined the league.

“You had two newcomers (Texas and Oklahoma)  to our league, and it’s really hard.  I’m super proud of him (Skinner),” Barnhart said.