Kentucky time machine: Re-publishing all eight UK national championship stories

Editor’s Note: On the morning of what would have been the 2020 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament championship game, the Herald-Leader is launching a series re-publishing the stories from the University of Kentucky’s eight national championship game victories in chronological order. These stories will appear, with some light editing, as they were written at the time in the Herald, the Leader or the Herald-Leader. We hope you enjoy them.

March 23, 1948

KENTUCKY 58, BAYLOR 42

At Madison Square Garden

Lexington Herald headline:

Cats Defeat Bears For NCAA Crown/Ruppmen Win, 58-42, Over Baylor Quintet; Olympic Trials Next

Kentucky’s magnificent Wildcats heaped more laurels upon their already well-laden heads here tonight as they took the National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball crown by defeating Baylor University, the Western regional champion, 58-42, before 16,174 fans.

Not only did the Kentuckians cop the national cage halo, but one of their number, big Alex Groza, was selected as the most valuable play­er in the tournament by a vote of sports writers. Groza, left off the Southeastern Conference all-tournament team and a member of the All-America second team, played spectacular ball in the three NCAA games here to win the trophy.

By virtue of their champion­ship victory, the Kentuckians will face their home-staters, the University of Louisville, in the first round of the Olympic Trials in the Garden on Saturday night. The Cardinals advanced to the trials by taking the NAIB (National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball) crown at Kansas City.

Although the Baylor Bears, surprise winners at Kansas City over favored Kansas State, fought valiantly tonight, they were no match for Coach Adolph Rupp’s great band of hoopsters. They made the Wildcats run all the way, but that was the only thing they accomplished in the playoff.

Outcome Never In Doubt

Groza, Wallace (Wah Wah) Jones, All-American Ralph Beard, captain Kenny Rollins, Cliff Barker and the other Kentuckians had too much scoring punch for the Waco, Texas, lads and the outcome was never actually in doubt.

On several occasions the Bears managed to close the gap to a point where they might become dangerous. But each time the Wildcats spurted forth to gain back a comfortable lead.

Visibly tired from the grueling tournament road here in New York, the Kentuckians nevertheless kept the heat on the Texans throughout the 40 minutes of play, giving another outstanding exhibition of defensive warfare as they limited their opponents to six field goals in the first half and nine in the second.

Groza Leading Scorer

Groza, who has been the leading scorer throughout the tournament, again headed the march of the Ruppmen in the finals by tossing in six fielders and two free throws for a total of 14 points.

The bounding little Beard finished second with 12 points, while Jones and Rollins had nine each, Barker had five and left-hander Jim Line contributed seven.

As a result of their sharpshooting, the Wildcats established a new three-game scoring record for NCAA Tournament play. Oklahoma A&M previously held the mark with a total of 179 points, established in 1945, but Kentucky ‘s 195-point total this year easily surpassed that mark.

Early Lead Piled Up

At the outset of tonight’s battle it appeared that Coach Rupp’s stars might pile up a margin as lopsided as some of their regular-­season encounters. They jumped into a 7-0 lead at the end of the first five minutes and then in­creased the advantage to 13-1 be­fore the Bears tallied their first fielder.

Midway of the period the count stood at 18-5, and then the Baylor courtmen came to life to pitch on even terms with the Wildcats, each team accounting 11 points to put the halftime score at 29-16.

With the beginning of the second period the Bears continued to battle desperately, but after seven minutes of play they were able to slice but one point off the Wildcats’ margin, at 36-24. Then Line was sent into the tilt for Jones when the Harlan athlete drew a third personal foul and the Texans thought they saw daylight.

Line Sinks A Pair

But what they really saw was another star, for after Beard had hung two shots in the basket in short order and Baylor had picked up three points on a layup and a charity shot, Line hit two of his spectacular left-handed shots quicker than the Bears’ star guard, Jack Robinson, could say his name.

By mid-period the Kentuckians had driven their way to a 44-28 lead, but in the the next five minutes of play Baylor outshot the Blue Grass boys, eight points to six, to trim the advantage to 14 points at 50-36.

In the final stages, however, with Jones back in the battle in place of Barker, the Ruppmen surged forth again.

The victory was the 34th in 36 starts for the Cats this season and gave them the enviable record of two national tournament championships and a runner-up berth in the past three years.

They annexed the National Invitation title from Rhode Island in 1946, and were runner-up to Utah in the Invitation last year.

Second Double Champs

Furthermore, they are the second team ever to win both the Invitation (NIT) and NCAA titles.

In the finals, the Wildcats were not quite as accurate as they had been in the previous two games, but they still finished with the respectable average of 29.4 percent for their attempts from the field. Baylor accounted for 25.8 percent of its tries.

This story was originally published April 6, 2020 at 7:33 AM.