Kentucky basketball’s most memorable NCAA Tournament clutch shots
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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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Kentucky has won more men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament games (129) than any other school. So it seems reasonable to speculate that the Wildcats might have hit more clutch shots in the Big Dance than any other team.
Three different UK players have hit game winners in the Final Four.
One Wildcat sank the winning shot in two out of three games of the same NCAA Tournament.
Another Cat drained the decisive bucket in three straight games of the same NCAA Tournament.
Most poignantly, four different Kentucky guards made pressure-defying shots in high-stakes moments that might now live among the most-memorable clutch baskets in NCAA Tournament lore — except the Wildcats then failed to win the games.
This is a snapshot of some of the memorable NCAA Tournament clutch shots in Kentucky Wildcats history.
‘Comeback Cats’
When you rally from double-digits down in the final three games en route to winning the NCAA championship — as UK’s 1998 national championship team did — there is ample opportunity for clutch shots:
1. Cameron Mills, vs. Duke, round of eight. Down 71-54 inside the final 10 minutes, a furiously rallying Kentucky seized the lead for the first time when Mills retrieved an offensive rebound slapped to the top of the key by Heshimu Evans and buried a straight-on trey with 2:15 left for an 80-79 advantage.
2. Scott Padgett, vs. Duke, round of eight. Six years after Christian Laettner’s dagger to the heart of The Unforgettables, Padgett gave Kentucky catharsis when he drilled a three with 39.4 seconds remaining that gave the Cats the lead for good in what became a sweet 86-84 victory.
3. Jeff Sheppard, vs. Utah, NCAA finals. Down 41-31 at halftime, UK clawed back to take the lead for good on Sheppard’s baseline jumper with 4:54 left in what became a 78-69 Cats victory.
‘Knight time’
In 2011, Brandon Knight launched Kentucky to its first Final Four trip in 13 years with a pair of game-winning shots.
1. Princeton, round of 64. The UK freshman point guard had not made a field goal in the entire game — until with two seconds left he drove around 6-foot-8 Kareem Maddox for a layup that gave Kentucky a 59-57 victory over No. 13-seed Princeton.
2. Ohio State, round of 16. Knight’s pull-up jumper over Aaron Craft with 5.4 seconds left allowed UK to oust the No. 1 overall seed Buckeyes 62-60.
Good things in ‘threes’
Three years later in 2014, another Kentucky freshman guard, Aaron Harrison, went Knight one better.
1. Louisville, round of 16. Harrison buried a trey from the deep left corner with 39 seconds left that put UK ahead to stay in what became a 74-69 Big Dance victory over Kentucky’s bitter rival.
2. Michigan, round of eight. Two days after his big shot against U of L, Harrison did it again, draining a contested three from the deep left wing with 2.3 seconds left to beat Michigan 75-72 and put Kentucky into the Final Four.
3. Wisconsin, Final Four. Harrison buried another defended trey from the deep left wing with 5.7 seconds left and UK down two to beat the Badgers 74-73 and put Kentucky into the national championship game.
Final Four game-winners
1. Shelby Linville, vs. Illinois, 1951. With Kentucky’s stars either having fouled out (Bill Spivey and Cliff Hagan) or struggling (Frank Ramsey was 2-of-19), Linville scored the Cats’ final six points. That included the game-winning layup with 12 seconds left in a 76-74 UK national semifinals win.
2. Vernon Hatton, vs. Temple, 1958. Hatton’s layup with 17 seconds left gave UK a 61-60 victory over the Owls in the national semifinals in Freedom Hall.
3. Aaron Harrison, vs. Wisconsin, 2014. See above.
The ‘Almost Heroes’
What if Kentucky had gone on to win the games in which the following four shots were hit? How famous would these shots — these four UK players — still be?
1. Jim Master, vs. Louisville, 1983 round of eight. In the massively hyped original “Dream Game,” Master hit a baseline jumper at the buzzer to force overtime. Alas, UK got blitzed in the OT and lost 80-68.
2. Sean Woods vs. Duke, 1992 round of eight. In what many consider the greatest college basketball game ever played, Woods’ 12-foot running bank shot over Bobby Hurley and Christian Laettner with 2.1 seconds left in overtime put UK ahead 103-102.
Had the game ended there, Woods’ shot would be the one replayed over and over and over each March.
Alas, Laettner trumped it with a buzzer-beater of his own that won the game for Duke.
3. Anthony Epps vs. Arizona, 1997 championship game. With UK down three, Epps sent the national title game into overtime with a double-clutch, three-pointer with 12.1 seconds left.
Had Kentucky gone on to win, it would be one of the most famous shots in college hoops history. Arizona prevailed instead, 84-79.
4. Patrick Sparks vs. Michigan State, 2005 round of eight. With UK down three as time ran out, Sparks retrieved a long rebound. Just before the final horn sounded, Sparks let fly with a three-pointer from the top of the key.
The shot bounced off the rim, caromed off the backboard, hung on the left side of the iron — and finally dropped in to force overtime.
UK ultimately lost to the Men of Izzo, however, in double OT.
In 2016, I asked both Woods and Epps about the fate of players who hit stone-cold clutch shots in major NCAA Tournament moments that do not, ultimately, lead to victory.
Said Epps: “If we’d won, my shot would be one of the top five, top 10 shots in the history of the NCAA Tournament. … It’s a great feeling on such a big stage to make a play to give your team a chance to win the game — I just wish we’d won the game.”
Said Woods: “The shot people remember is the shot that wins the game — that’s just how it is.”
Fortunately for Kentucky backers, the Wildcats have hit plenty of those shots in NCAA Tournament games, as well.
This story was originally published April 4, 2021 at 5:20 AM.
