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WUKY SportsPage Episode 39: KSU Basketball Great Arthur Box

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Fifty years ago, March 1971, the Kentucky State Thorobreds wrapped up the second of their three consecutive NAIA basketball championships. Arthur Box, graduating early, had finished his senior year of high school in Cleveland in January 1971. He came to Frankfort the following season, when the Thorobreds earned their third straight national title. Box has become an unofficial historian for that great era, and has written a book called “Still Champions After All These Years,” a compilation of biographies, photos and statistics of the championship teams and others from the coaching tenure of Lucias Mitchell, as well as updates on the players' lives after basketball.

There was NBA talent on the floor for the Thorobreds, led by Travis Grant and Elmore Smith, and often for their opponents.  They played in front of packed houses on the campus in Frankfort and on the road. In addition to the national championship team of 1972, Box played on NAIA district champions in 1973, 1974, and 1975. He scored 958 points in his career at Kentucky State, which placed him 19th on the Thorobreds scoring list at that time. He’s a member of the KSU Athletics Hall of Fame.

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