Kentucky’s many postseason heroes have met with impossible-to-forget villains
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The Magic of Madness
The 2020-21 men’s basketball season did not go Kentucky’s way, but the Wildcats have delighted Kentuckians with peak postseason performances for decades. As the Final Four plays out this weekend in Indianapolis, the Herald-Leader has produced a 20-page, full-color commemorative special section inside Sunday’s newspaper celebrating Kentucky’s most memorable moments in the NCAA Tournament. Click below to read the stories from that section in digital form.
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This year marks the 82nd playing of the NCAA Tournament. Of course, Kentucky has won eight national championships.
But what about the 74 times Kentucky did not win the NCAA Tournament? (And only four titles in the last 63 years.) Clearly, blame must be assigned. The villains and/or sinister forces foiling Kentucky should be identified.
Here — in alphabetical order — is a list to help with that almost annual rite of spring.
COVID-19
More than once John Calipari has said that Kentucky was on track to win the 2020 NCAA Tournament. Then, of course, the coronavirus was declared a pandemic last March and the NCAA Tournament canceled.
In an interview with ESPN last March, Calipari said, “I’m really going to miss this team. I think we could’ve won the national title.”
‘Extra-celestial phenomenon’
Kentucky famously made only three of 33 shots in the second half of a 53-40 loss to Georgetown in the 1984 Final Four semifinals.
UK actually led 29-22 at halftime, then scored two points in the first 16 minutes of the second half.
To explain his team’s 9.1-percent shooting accuracy, Coach Joe B. Hall said, “I guess it was an extra-celestial phenomenon.”
John Higgins
After Kentucky lost to North Carolina 75-73 in the 2017 South Region finals, Calipari implied that the referees helped the Tar Heels win.
“You know, it’s amazing that we were in that game where they practically fouled out my whole team,” he said to begin his postgame news conference. Later, he added, “I told (the UK players) at halftime, it is what it is. You’ve got to beat who’s out there.”
Some UK fans directed death threats at one of the game’s referees, John Higgins.
Christian Laettner
Of course, Christian Laettner hit the shot that crushed Kentucky’s soul and gave Duke a 104-103 overtime victory in the 1992 East Region finals. Earlier in the game, he sent a don’t-mess-with-me message by tapping a foot on the chest of a fallen Aminu Timberlake. For the BBN, the tap lives in infamy as a “stomp.”
Laettner found a useful outlet for his villainy in 2011 by coming to Lexington and coaching a team of “villains” against former UK players in a charity game benefiting The V Foundation for Cancer Research. He acknowledged regret for the tap/stomp by saying, “There was maybe too much adrenaline flowing, but it was a big mistake.”
Luke Maye
Luke Maye made the jumper in the final seconds that gave North Carolina the victory over UK in the 2017 South Region finals.
In noting that he shared a uniform number with Maye, Christian Laettner tweeted, “Luke my son … may the force of the #32 be with you.”
Then twisting the knife, Laettner added, #uncdownsthecats and #theshotlives.
Al McGuire
As Marquette coach in the 1960s and 1970s, Al McGuire led his team against Kentucky five times in NCAA Tournaments. If Marquette winning two of those games was not insulting enough, McGuire’s irreverence toward Adolph Rupp (and by extension Kentucky basketball) made him a villain.
Upon Rupp’s death in 1977, sportswriter David Jantz of the Milwaukee Sentinel spoke to McGuire, who recalled a news conference previewing the Kentucky-Marquette game in the 1971 Mideast Region.
Speaking first, Rupp turned to McGuire and, as Jantz described it, “said in his best Southern drawl, ‘Now, son …’”
To which McGuire shot back, “If you’re going to call me son, you better put me in the will.”
On another occasion, friends urged Rupp to make amends with McGuire. So, Jantz wrote, Rupp called McGuire and said, “I know we’ve had our differences, but I just can’t begin to tell you how great a coach you are.”
To which, McGuire replied, “Then why don’t you get off the line and put someone on who can?”
NCAA
For Calipari, the announcement of seeding and bracketing comes on Rejection Sunday. Almost annually he rejects the NCAA Men’s Basketball Committee’s decisions regarding Kentucky’s seed or “path” or playing sites.
Perhaps he’s trying to inspire an us-against-them motivation for UK players in early-round games, but Kentucky’s problems with the NCAA precede Calipari.
In 1986, then-Coach Eddie Sutton bemoaned Kentucky having to play Alabama and LSU in the Southeast Region. It was the fourth time Kentucky played those teams that season. After LSU won in the finals, the NCAA amended the bracketing rules to prevent a repeat in the future.
Dean Smith
While beloved and/or respected throughout college basketball, iconic North Carolina Coach Dean Smith makes the list.
That’s because he berated UK big man Rick Robey during the title game of the 1977 East Region. Smith objected to what he perceived as Robey’s rough-house play.
If that wasn’t bad enough, North Carolina beat Kentucky 79-72 by going to Smith’s signature “four corners” stall in the final minutes. With no shot clock, UNC could retreat while UK wanted to compete.
Vaughn Wedeking
The diminutive point guard for Jacksonville defiled any reasonable person’s sense of basketball justice in the 1970 Mideast Region finals game against Kentucky. With Dan Issel not looking, he snuck up behind the UK star and took a quote-unquote charge near mid-court. It was Issel’s fifth foul. Jacksonville won 106-100.
“The thing that sticks in my mind most is how much time there was left in the game,” Issel said 51 years later. “I believe there was more than 10 minutes left.”
Judging block/charge was ill-defined at the time. That Issel did not have the ball was irrelevant.
“The fact it took place at mid-court is what made it so hard to take,” Issel said. “I was just running back down the court to the offensive end.
“It was a smart play on his part because if he gets called for blocking, that doesn’t make much difference.”
Wedeking, who died in 2009 at age 60, had no fouls in the game. Issel was one of four UK players to foul out.
Does taking advantage of the rules in a sneaky way qualify as villainous?
“He certainly is my villain,” Issel said with a chuckle.
John Wooden
The personification of a winning coach, John Wooden had the audacity to lead UCLA to 10 national championships in 12 years. That’s put Kentucky in catch-up mode in terms of most NCAA Tournament titles for more than a half century now.
Plus, the Wizard of Westwood had the temerity to announce on the eve of the 1975 national championship game that he would retire after UCLA played Kentucky. The Big Blue Nation was shocked — shocked — that a coach would be willing to go to great lengths to gain an advantage.
This story was originally published April 4, 2021 at 5:18 AM.
