Kentucky Banner Boys spark viral recruiting movement

What started as a joke between two Kentucky students who are fans of the basketball program has quickly become one of the most talked-about recruiting storylines this spring.

Sigma Chi sophomores Theo Timmerding and Gabe Mingus detailed how the now-viral “Kentucky Banner Boys” movement came together.

Theo said the idea began Saturday when they saw news that five-star recruit Tyran Stokes would be visiting Kentucky on Monday. By Sunday, Gabe and Theo were ready to make it happen. At first, they were struggling to find cheap bed sheets, as they debated whether it was worth the cost, but ultimately decided to go through with it anyway.

They quickly got to work and put the first banner up for Stokes that said “Welcome Home Tyran” as it started to get attention across social media.

As more recruiting news followed, they added two more banners, including one for BYU transfer guard Rob Wright and Syracuse forward Donnie Freeman, helping the movement gain even more traction across Big Blue Nation.

The inspiration behind the message came from their connection to the program.

“So me and Gabe have been die-hard Kentucky fans our whole life, and we think of Kentucky, as I mean, home,” Timmerding tells A Sea of Blue. “We’re both from here, and I think of the school and the program as home. So we’re like, come home to the program, like we got the best fans in the world. Like we’re BBN’s family. So that was the inspiration behind that. That happened, then the craziest part is when the coaches rolled by the house.”

During it all, Kentucky assistants Mo Williams and Mikhail McLean stopped by the house, creating a crazy moment for the students.

“This truck stopped right in front of the house, and I was like, ‘ That looks a lot like Coach McLean,‘ but I couldn’t see him from our angle,” Mingus says. “And then they pulled up a little bit, like they’re going to take off, and they just stopped, and they got out of the car, and yeah, it was Mo Williams and coach McLean. Mo was recording us, and then Coach McLean walked up and was like, ‘Donnie’s mad you all don’t have one for him,’ and he turned his phone around, and he was on FaceTime with Donnie Freeman.”

Since then, the trend has spread beyond just the Sigma Chi fraternity house, with people now hanging their own banners on their houses or apartments.

“I think that is amazing,” Timmerding says. “That’s what just makes BBN the best fans in the world because we see what something unites us and everybody will just take and run with it because BBN’s the most united fan base in the country, I think and when something like this happens and everyone gets involved, it just proves that we are the best fans and everyone’s so together and it just makes makes the whole process just so more enjoyable being a Kentucky fan.”

Now, the “Kentucky Banner Boys” might even play a small part in Kentucky’s recruiting push for Stokes, Wright, and Freeman.

“I mean, that would be the dream,” Timmerding says. “Even if we played no part, as long as they come here, that is the dream come true because that’s the goal. We need them here. And if we played a little bit of part and they said, ‘Man, those banners are so freaking cool.’ Even if they drove by here, I think we would freak out. I don’t know what I would do with myself.”