Kentucky time machine: Cats roll over Elgin Baylor-led Seattle for 1958 NCAA title

Editor’s Note: The Herald-Leader continues its series re-publishing the game stories from Kentucky’s eight national title contests in chronological order. These stories appear, with some light editing, as they were written at the time in the Herald, the Leader or the Herald-Leader. We hope you’re enjoying them.

March 22, 1958

KENTUCKY 84, SEATTLE 72

At Freedom Hall

Sunday Herald-Leader headline:

Wildcats Topple Seattle, 84-72, To Win Fourth NCAA Championship

Kentucky’s marvelous Wildcats, twice down by 11 points in the first half, unleashed a terrific attack in the final 10 minutes of play here tonight to trim the Seattle Chieftains, 84-72, and capture their fourth NCAA basketball championship.

A crowd of 18,803 fans, breaking Friday night’s record attendance, saw Coach Adolph Rupp’s charges come off the floor to win with a flurry of baskets that left the Far West champions bewildered at the finish.

In this blazing finish that kept the pro-Kentucky crowd in an uproar, the Wildcats took the lead to stay at 61-60 — the same score as their Friday-night win over Temple — with 6:04 remaining. Until then, the only times Kentucky had been on top on the scoreboard was early in the game.

Appropriately, it was sophomore Don Mills, who entered the game as a substitute for Big Ed Beck when the latter committed his fourth personal foul after 2:25 of the second half, who shot the basket that put the Wildcats in front.

Johnny Cox, who pumped them in from outside the Seattle zone in the second half, hit a jump shot 56 seconds later and the Cats ran the count to 67-60 with four minutes left.

It was this spurt that broke the backs of the Chieftains, who entered the game with seven straight wins and 19 triumphs in their last 20 starts.

After that, Coach John Castellani’s boys fouled frequently in an effort to get possession, but the Wildcats, who had muffed several earlier opportunities from the free-throw line, put the game on ice by making good nine of 11 in the closing minutes.

Seattle, led by the sensational Elgin Baylor, appeared headed for its first national crown until the Wildcats — Kentucky’s only team in history that did not place a man on the All-Southeastern Conference team — staged their great finish.

Once again it was Vernon Hatton, the former Lafayette High cager who was playing his final game in a Kentucky uniform, who fired in the points at crucial times. Hatton was the game’s high scorer with 30 points, five more than the total of 25 amassed by Baylor, the nation’s second-leading scorer. Cox was next in line for Kentucky with 24, followed by John Crigler, who got the Cats’ first three fielders, with 14. Mills, playing with the poise and courage of a veteran, had nine points and Adrian Smith seven. Beck failed to score, but he played a fine defensive game against Baylor until running into personal foul trouble.

Sweet Charlie Brown, the transfer from Indiana who teamed with Baylor to give Seattle a terrific one-two punch this season, rammed in 17 points. Jerry Frizzell had 16, Don Ogorek 10 and Jim Harney four.

Baylor committed three personals in the first half and picked up his fourth after 3:27 of the second half, but the crafty forward stayed in all the way. Two of his teammates fouled out, however, Ogorek being banished with 4:18 remaining and Brown bowing out with 1:43 left.

The Wildcats, adding the 1958 crown to championships won in 1948, 1949 and 1951, outscored Seattle from the field by 30-25 and hit at a 41.2 percent clip, needing 73 shots to get their total.

Seattle shot 69 times, winding up with a 36 percent accuracy mark.

After being outrebounded by 27-22 in the first half, Kentucky dominated the boards in the second period, grabbing 33 rebounds to 19 for the losers to wind up with a 55-46 margin in this important phase of the game.

The triumph gave the Southeastern Conference champions a season’s record 23-6 — three of the losses by one point and two of the setbacks coming from within the SEC. Seattle finished with an identical 23-6 record.

En route to the championship, Kentucky defeated Miami of Ohio and Notre Dame by top-heavy scores in the Mideast Regional, then won a spine-tingling, one-point decision from Temple, winner of tonight’s third-place game, in the semifinals.

Seattle’s road to the final round found the Chieftains taking an easy 88-51 win over Wyoming, then capturing squeakers over San Francisco (69-67) and California (66-62 in overtime) to win a trip to Louisville. The Chiefs routed Kansas State, 73-51, in their semifinal game.

Baylor, thought by many to be the nation’s best collegiate player, led all rebounders with 19. Ogorek got 11 for Seattle. Kentucky’s top men off the boards were Cox with 16 and Crigler with 14.

In tabbing his 30 points, Hatton hit nine of 20 shots from the field and 12 of 15 from the free-throw line. Cox connected on 10 of 23 from the field and four of four from the line. Baylor’s total included nine fielders in 32 tries and seven of nine free throws.

When the game ended, Kentucky’s cheerleaders rushed on the floor to embrace the Wildcats. Beck and Hatton were lifted into the air by their mates to cut the net from the two baskets.

In a short talk during which he and his team received the NCAA trophy, Rupp said the credit should be given “to these ugly ducklings who weren’t supposed to swim. I had a bunch of fiddlers at the start, but to me they’re violinists now.”

Kentucky scored first on Hatton’s free throw after 41 seconds, but the Cats’ lead was short-lived. Baylor knotted it 10 seconds later and after a minute and a half of scoreless battling, Frizzell hit two free throws to give Seattle its first lead at 3-1.

Two gratis tosses by Cox knotted the score, but Baylor popped in two successive jump shots for the game’s first field goals to send the Chieftains ahead, 7-3.

Kentucky’s first basket from the field a set shot by Crigler — came after 3:25, and Crigler came through for two more on layups to send Kentucky ahead, 9-7.

Frizzell fashioned the game’s fourth tie with a pair of gratis heaves, but Crigler’s free throw made it 10-9 for Kentucky.

Here the Cats hit a cold streak and Seattle scored nine points in a row on a free throw by Baylor, a jump shot by Brown, a jump by Baylor, a rebound and layup by Frizzell and a shot from the corner by the same man. This made it 18-10 for Seattle.

Hatton’s two free throws broke Kentucky’s scoring drought, and Crigler followed with a layup to narrow the count to 19-14. A tip-in by Ogorek was offset by two free throws from Crigler, but Seattle surged into an 11-point lead on a tip-in by Baylor, two free throws by Brown and Brown’s jump shot.

Hatton hit a set shot for the cats but Ogorek’s layup restored the Chieftains’ 11-point lead at 29-18. Here the Cats started a rally and pulled to within one point of the Washington team.

A layup by Hatton, a driving layup by Cox and Hatton’s two free throws made it 29-24 as Seattle began to slow the play. Freizzell hit two free throws to put the Chieftains ahead by seven points, but a Kentucky flurry that Hatton drive under for a layup, Cox connect from the corner and Hatton hit a jump shot sliced the Seattle lead to 31-30.

Ogorek hit a layup, but Smith countered with a jump shot on which he was fouled by Saunders. However, Smitty missed a chance to tie the score when he muffed the shot.

Baylor tabbed a basket on a tip-in to shot Seattle ahead by 39-32. With 1:03 to go Smith hit a jump for the Cats and seven seconds before the end of the half Mills, who had replaced Beck with 1:46 remaining when Big Ed committed his third personal, dropped in one from in front of the basket that cut Seattle’s lead to 39-36 at intermission.

Seattle hit a a 40.7 percent clip in the first half, netting 13 of 32 shots. The Cats were close behind with the same number of hits in 33 shots for a 39.4 mark. The Cats hit 10 of 15 free throws while Seattle connected on 13 of 17. The Chieftains outrebounded the Cats by 27-22 in the first 20 minutes. Smith and Beck of Kentucky and Baylor of Seattle each picked up three personals in the first half.

Hatton’s layup at the start of the second half once again cut the lead to a single point, but Seattle drew ahead by 43-38 after three minutes. From this point, until Cox’s jump shot tied the score for the first time in the second period, Seattle’s lead fluctuated between two and six points. Brown returned the lead to the Chieftains with a jump shot, but Cox retaliated and the score was deadlocked for the eighth time — at 58-58 — with 7:20 to go.

Once again, Seattle forged ahead, Ogorek hitting two free throws on the one-and-one. With 6:48 to go, Mills was fouled in the act of shooting, but he missed his first try, thus losing a chance to tie the count again. But 40 seconds later, Mills hit a soft hook shot that sent the Cats on top as the Kentucky fans almost tore the roof off spacious Freedom Hall.

Seattle, now apparently rattled, failed to score on its next trip down the floor and a jump shot by Cox made it 63-60 with 5:08 to go. Here the Chieftains called timeout, but when play was resumed, Kentucky kept going and soon had a working lead.

Seattle threw a mild scare into the Kentucky rooters by drawing to within three points at 68-65 with 4:14 remaining when Baylor made a three-point trip to erase half of the Kentucky lead held at that time.

But Hatton hit a jump shot and Cox added two free throws to pull the Cats out of danger. Baylor cut the margin to five points, but that was the closest the Chieftains could get. In the final two minutes, Seattle put on the full-court press, but all the Chieftains collected out of it was personal fouls.. Hatton wound up the scoring with an easy layup nine seconds before the end as Kentucky fans counted off the seconds before rushing onto the floor to congratulate the new champions.

After the game, Seattle Coach John Castellani said: “We have no excuses. Kentucky outplayed us and deserved to win. Baylor’s rib condition which appears to be a possible fracture — he got it in the K-State game — bothered him from the opening whistle. He had trouble breathing. When he committed his third foul, we had no choice but to slow him down in order for him to get his breath and keep from getting his fourth foul before halftime. Although we had them down by nine, it was my decision. I knew as long as he could stay in the game, we had a chance in the last 20 minutes. We were in trouble in the early part of the second half with their guard-around play, because Baylor could not switch. I had to go into a zone but they killed us from the outside, particularly Cox, who is a real fine competitor. Congratulations to Adolph Rupp and a great Kentucky team.”

Rupp said: “We beat a wonderful team. Our boys had a tremendous desire to win. I wasn’t sure we had it till about a minute to go and we were eight on top. I don’t know how we got here, this team wasn’t supposed to rate with some of the great ones of the past. We never had a boy make the all-conference team much less All-America. I never got a vote for coach of the year, so I know the boys were not overcoached. We played a better game against Seattle. Baylor is a great boy on offense, but we sent everything against him in the belief he wasn’t strong defensively.

Tonight’s crowd brought to 37,389 the number of fans who saw the two nights of action here and helped pile up a new record attendance total of 176,878 for the entire far-flung playoffs. The former record was 132,513 set in 1956 and the old single game mark, beaten twice in the tourney here, was 18,479 at the Oklahoma A&M-North Carolina title contest at Madison Square Garden in 1946.

After an impromptu celebration at Freedom Hall, the Wildcats returned to their hotel. Their travel plans were indefinite at a late hour tonight.

This story was originally published April 11, 2020 at 9:08 AM.