Forget Laettner, a Vols’ ‘villain’ was once UK basketball’s ultimate black hat
Twenty-seven years after Christian Laettner’s NCAA Tournament dagger broke the hearts of The Unforgetables, it remains common to see Kentucky fans wearing shirts that proclaim “I still hate Laettner.”
UK backer Geno Kearney’s has a “I still hate” shirt. It features a different villain. “I speak of the evil one, Ernie Grunfeld,” Kearney says.
On the week when John Calipari and No. 5 Kentucky will face Rick Barnes and No. 1 Tennessee in the most anticipated Wildcats-Volunteers men’s basketball game in decades, one UK backer’s ardor to see the Cats best the Vols is fueled by a controversial UK-UT contest from 43 years ago.
Even now, Winchester’s Kearney, 57, can paint a vivid word picture of what it was like to be in Memorial Coliseum on Jan. 10, 1976.
That night, Kearney’s father, Mike, took Geno, then 14, to see Joe B. Hall’s Wildcats face off against Ray Mears and the No. 9 Volunteers in what was the younger Kearney’s first Kentucky game in person.
“I remember the oranges raining down from the (UK) student section onto the (playing) floor when Tennessee came on the court,” Kearney said. “I remember my Dad jerking me by the arm to stand up when the pep band played the (UK) fight song. Dad said ‘Always stand up for this.’ To this day, I do.”
When the game started, an underdog UK squad playing without injured sophomore standout Rick Robey took it to the Volunteers, building a 75-61 lead with just seven minutes left.
Alas, a rash of late UK turnovers and brilliant play from Tennessee stars Grunfeld (43 points) and Bernard King (24), forced the game into overtime.
In spite of a stellar performance from UK sophomore center Mike Phillips (26 points, 28 rebounds), the Volunteers prevailed 90-88 in what was the final UK-UT game in the Coliseum before Kentucky moved into Rupp Arena the following season.
“What I still remember, that night, the fans around us, we were all furious,” Kearney says. “We all knew Grunfeld had cheated.”
A free-throw caper
In the post-game accounts filed in the Sunday Herald-Leader and the Courier Journal in Louisville on Jan. 11, 1976, there were no reports of anything amiss in how Tennessee had beaten Kentucky. However, on his weekly television show that Sunday, UK’s Hall used game video to make an explosive charge.
In a game that Kentucky lost by two points, Hall said the video showed that Tennessee’s Grunfeld had made four first-half free throws that followed plays in which he had not been the UT player fouled.
With 9:47 left in the first half, UK’s James Lee had gone over the back of Vols freshman center Irv Chatman for a rebounding foul.
To that point in his Tennessee career, Chatman had never attempted a college free throw.
Grunfeld, an 83.4 percent foul shooter at the time, took and made the foul shots. Chatman would go on to finish 1-of-4 from the foul line in that game.
With 2:28 left in the first half, UK’s Phillips fouled UT’s King — a 70 percent foul shooter — while battling for a rebound.
Grunfeld shot and made those two free throws, too. He finished 11-of-11 from the line for the game.
Those four free throws ended up being the difference between winning and losing.
On his TV show, Hall accused Tennessee of a “premeditated conspiracy.”
The resulting controversy consumed the states of Tennessee and Kentucky.
Grunfeld proclaimed innocence. “I thought they were my shots,” Grunfeld told the Courier Journal the Monday after the game. “I didn’t do it.”
The video of the game, with Grunfeld seen talking to the teammates who were actually fouled before subsequently stepping in to shoot the foul shots, suggested otherwise.
Ultimately, Mears, the Tennessee coach, told the Associated Press it was just “gamesmanship. It’s not unusual for a taller man to step in on a jump ball or a better foul shooter go to the line” in place of a poorer foul shooter.
The “gamesmanship” defense inflamed Hall. “I just don’t want to listen to that garbage,” he said. “Is it usual to cheat?”
‘I still hate Grunfeld’
From a fan’s perspective, one might surmise that having such a memorable game — even if it was a UK loss — be the first Kentucky contest one saw in person would, over time, seem pretty cool.
“It is my greatest UK sports memory,” Geno Kearney says now, “but it is not a good one.”
Across the decades, Kearney says even other Kentucky fans have laughed at the persistence of his ill-will toward Grunfeld, 63, who is now general manager of the NBA’s Washington Wizards.
“They tell me I need to let it go,” Kearney says.
However, on a recent visit to Wheeler Pharmacy in Lexington, Kearney at last found a kindred spirit who also still harbors strong feelings about that controversial UK-UT basketball game from 43 years ago.
He met Joe B. Hall.
On Wednesday, echoing his words from four decades before, Hall, 90, said “(Ray) Mears called it ‘gamesmanship.’ I called it cheating.”
After all those years of seeing “I still hate Laettner” shirts, Kearney asked his wife, Theda, for a Christmas present last December that would reflect his feeling toward an earlier UK basketball villain.
On Saturday night, when Kentucky and Tennessee square off as top five foes before a ESPN national telecast, Kearney will be in Rupp Arena wearing that present — a blue “I still hate Grunfeld” shirt.
“For me,” Geno Kearney says, “Ernie Grunfeld will always be the ultimate villain of Kentucky basketball.”
