1977-78

The 1977–78 season was just beginning when Adolph Rupp died on Dec. 10. Three and a half months later, Kentucky won its fifth NCAA championship. It was the Wildcats' first title in 20 years.

Coached by Joe B. Hall, who succeeded Rupp in 1972, the Wildcats were favored to win it all right from the start and the pressure to live up to that prediction and break the 20–year dry spell was intense.

Kentucky came into the tournament ranked No.1 and with a record of 25–2. In the Mideast Regional, the Wildcats played three conference champions (Florida St., Miami of Ohio and Michigan St.) and beat them all. At the Final Four in St. Louis, they defeated two more champions, Arkansas in the semifinals and Duke in the Final to win the title and end their misery.

Forward Jack Givens scored 41 points against Duke to win MVP honors.

Fifth-ranked Arkansas and No.6 Notre Dame both made it to the Final Four for the first time ever. In St. Louis, however, they each lost their semifinal games—the Razorbacks to Kentucky and the Irish to Duke. Arkansas won the consolation game at the buzzer, 71–69.

Texas shared the Southwest Conference title with Arkansas and coaches Eddie Sutton and Abe Lemons were two of the Coaches of the Year. Lemons and Texas had to settle for a bid to the NIT where the Longhorns met North Carolina State in the final and won by eight.

Final AP Top 20 (Writers' poll taken before tournament).

Note: Kentucky won the NCAAs and Texas won the NIT.

Consensus All-America  (In alphabetical order)

First Team

·         Larry Bird, Indiana St.

·         Phil Ford, North Carolina

·         David Greenwood, UCLA

·         Butch Lee, Marquette

·         Mychal Thompson, Minnesota

Second Team

·         Ron Brewer, Arkansas

·         Jack Givens, Kentucky

·         Rod Griffin, Wake Forest

·         Rick Robey, Kentucky

• Freeman Williams, Portland St.

AP POLL

1. Kentucky
2. UCLA
3. DePaul
4. Michigan State
5. Arkansas
6. Notre Dame
7. Duke
8. Marquette
9. Louisville
10. Kansas

UPI COACHES POLL

1. Kentucky
2. UCLA
3. Marquette
4. New Mexico
5. Michigan State
6. Arkansas
7. DePaul
8. Kansas
9. Duke
10. North Carolina

NCAA Results

First Round
Michigan State 77, Providence 63
Western Kentucky 87, Syracuse 86 (ot)
Miami (Ohio) 84, Marquette 81 (ot)
Kentucky 85, Florida State 76
UCLA 83, Kansas 76
Arkansas 73, Weber State 52
San Francisco 68, North Carolina 64
Cal State Fullerton 90, New Mexico 85
Duke 63, Rhode Island 62
Penn 92, St. Bonaventure 83
Indiana 63, Furman 62
Villanova 103, La Salle 97
Utah 86, Missouri 79 (2ot)
Notre Dame 100, Houston 77
DePaul 80, Creighton 78
Louisville 76, St. John's 68
Regional Semifinals
Michigan State 90, Western Kentucky 69
Kentucky 91, Miami (Ohio) 69
Arkansas 74, UCLA 70
Cal State Fullerton 75, San Francisco 72
Duke 84, Penn 80
Villanova 61, Indiana 60
Notre Dame 69, Utah 56
DePaul 90, Louisville 89 (2ot)
Regional Finals
Mideast: Kentucky 52, Michigan State 49
West: Arkansas 61, Cal State Fullerton 58
East: Duke 90, Villanova 72
Midwest: Notre Dame 84, DePaul 64
National Semifinals
Kentucky 64, Arkansas 59
Duke 90, Notre Dame 86
National Third Place
Arkansas 71, Notre Dame 69
Championship Game
Kentucky 94, Duke 88

Kentucky leaders: Jack Givens, Sr., F; Rick Robey, Sr, C-F; Kyle Macy, So., G; James Lee, Sr., F; Mike Phillips, Sr., C

All-NCAA Tournament Team

Top 10

All-America Team

Leaders
Team
Offense: New Mexico, 97.5
Defense: Fresno State, 52.5

Individual Scoring

Rebounding

Notes

• Texas (26-5) defeated North Carolina State 101-93 to win the NIT title.

• An airplane crash on Dec. 13, 1977, killed the University of Evansville basketball team, coach Bobby Watson, his staff and several friends of the program. The Aces were 1-3 before the crash in their first season in Division I.

HALL  OF FAME INDUCTEES

1978
*Justin M. (Sam) Barry, Coach
*Wilton N. Chamberlain, Player
*James E. Enright, Referee
*Edgar S. Hickey, Coach
*John B. McLendon, Jr., Coach
Raymond J. Meyer, Coach
Peter F. Newell, Coach

Kentucky is all business

They filed onto the dais with the demeanor of condemned men sitting down to a last supper. These were college students on the verge of achieving a dream, but they represented the University of Kentucky and wore the label like a yoke around their necks.

The Wildcats labored under the greatest of expectations.

As successful as they had been throughout the 1978 season -- 29 victories in 31 games -- there remained one more game to play and win. The NCAA title had escaped them three years earlier in John Wooden's coaching finale at UCLA, and no one involved in the Kentucky program would forget that the day before another championship game.

They would not, could not, settle for anything less than the grand prize.

"That's what we're in business for," Wildcats coach Joe B. Hall said.

Yes, it was a business at Kentucky, pure and simple. No code words to disguise the all-out effort and commitment. No talk of fun and games. No fooling around. And so when the Kentucky players followed the Duke players into the ballroom of a St. Louis hotel for a news conference, they were stone-faced.

"You have to dedicate yourself to winning," senior forward/center Rick Robey said. "To be successful, you can't enjoy it during the grind."

The contrast between Kentucky and Duke could not have been more pronounced. The Blue Devils were a collection of young players -- coach Bill Foster started two freshmen, two sophomores and a junior -- who were out having the time of their lives.

"I haven't had this much fun playing basketball since the sixth grade," freshman forward Kenny Dennard said after Duke outlasted Notre Dame, 90-86, in one of the Final Four semifinal games.

"If you're not having fun, you shouldn't be playing the game," said junior guard Jim Spanarkel, the acknowledged leader of the team.

To the Blue Devils, everything they had accomplished on the road to St. Louis -- an Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament title and the East Regional championship -- was cause for celebration.

The philosophy at Kentucky was that the achievement of only one objective was worthy of a demonstration. "During the season," Robey said, "you can't celebrate if you want to win."

If that bit of wisdom had been passed on by the coach, understand that it did not originate with Hall. He merely was the caretaker of a tradition that would not be satisfied with second best.

It had started with Adolph Rupp, the Baron of the Bluegrass, who had died the previous December. Rupp's teams had won four NCAA titles and dominated Southern basketball. He hadn't coached in six years or guided a team to the national championship game since 1966, but that didn't matter.

Rupp was the man who built the program and created the fanaticism.

"At Kentucky," Hall said, "you're competing more against the past than against other teams."

A 64-59 victory over Arkansas in the national semifinals wasn't about to quiet his critics. Had Kentucky lost its first game of the NCAA Tournament to Florida State -- a game the Wildcats salvaged only after Hall had benched Robey, senior forward Jack Givens and junior guard Truman Claytor -- the coach said he expected to be fired.

And that would have been after his team had gone 25-2 in the regular season. Reaching the Final Four might have made his job safe for another year, but Hall could find temporary relief from his detractors only with a victory over Duke.

In his office, Hall kept a thick folder that he called his "hate file." It was a collection of letters and twisted Christmas cards that offered advice on how he should spend the rest of his life -- and they didn't mean coaching basketball.

Rupp's mail always had been screened by his personal secretary, who made sure that the discouraging words never were heard by the coach. Hall, however, discontinued that practice.

"I needed to toughen myself," he said.

Nor did he spare his players that hard-bitten approach. Hall contended that nothing but a tough team would survive at Kentucky, so he tongue-lashed the Wildcats until they could take anything emotionally and mentally. Meanwhile, he drilled them so they could stand up to any team physically.

"There's been a lot of days when you just want to fall out, to have it end," Givens said. "But I think the hard work and the pressure make a better man out of you. It prepares you for life."

Of all the Kentucky players, Givens had been the target of Hall's harshest blasts. He was not only an upperclassman, but also the team's designated shooter and scorer, a gazelle among the elephants. But he had this habit, the coach decided, of disappearing at key moments of the most important games.

That alleged tendency enraged Hall. At Alabama the previous season, Hall had called Givens "gutless" in front of his teammates at halftime. Givens responded with an l8-point second half and the Wildcats won, 87-85.

But later that season against Tennessee, when a victory would have given the Wildcats the Southeastern Conference title and the opportunity to host an NCAA regional on their home court, Givens went up for open jump shots late in the game and passed backward.

As a senior, Givens had done much the same thing in his team's loss at Louisiana State, Hall thought, and that time the coach had ripped him publicly.

"He uses that type of thing to work on your head," Robey said. "When you're the shooter, when you're the guy who can hit the open shot, he's going to put that kind of pressure on you.

"He wanted Jack and I, in pressure situations, to want the ball. Want it bad."

Givens said he never took the criticism personally. And that was fortunate for Hall and Kentucky because in the NCAA championship game at the Checkerdome, Givens would be the man on the spot.

Duke played a 2-3 zone defense and attempted to stretch it from the baseline, where the 6-foot-l0 Robey and the massive 6-11 Mike Phillips stood like twin towers, to the backcourt, manned by sharpshooters Kyle Macy and Claytor.

"Hank Iba once told me," said Hall, invoking a legend other than Rupp's, "that when you stretch a zone that far, the middle has to be weak."

The middle was open for Givens. Wide open. Whenever the Duke guards crowded Macy or Claytor, the 6-4 forward would bolt toward the free-throw area, take a pass and launch a jump shot.

Mike Gminski, the Blue Devils' 6-11 sophomore center, was reluctant to challenge Givens because he was concerned with Robey and Phillips underneath the basket.

"I kept thinking that Gminski would come out and get me," Givens said, "but he didn't. So I kept shooting them."

He shot 12 times in the first 20 minutes and sank nine. Givens scored Kentucky's last 16 points of the half for a total of 23, and the Wildcats went to the locker room with a 45-38 lead.

Duke cut the deficit to three points three times in the first two minutes of the second half. But a long shot by Claytor, two free throws by Macy following a technical foul against Foster and Robey's dunk on a nifty pass from Macy raised the margin to nine and effectively ended the suspense.

Givens continued to find open areas in the Blue Devils' zone and fire away. He scored from the baseline, he scored from the side, he scored driving the lane and he scored twice on offensive rebounds. He had nine more field goals in the second half and finished the game and his college career with 41 points.

It didn't matter that Duke received balanced scoring from freshman Gene Banks (22 points), Spanarkel (21) and Gminski (20). In fact, it didn't matter what the Blue Devils did at the offensive end. They couldn't handle the outside-inside combination of Givens, whose selection as the Final Four's outstanding player was almost unanimous, and Robey (20 points).

The Blue Devils made a belated effort to close the gap when Hall gave several of his reserves some playing time, cutting the Kentucky lead to 92-88 with 12 seconds left. But forward James Lee eliminated any doubt about the outcome with a resounding dunk four seconds before the final buzzer. The pressure imposed by the program and by Hall reaped a 94-88 victory and a championship.

But even the coach seemed to question the cost of such an achievement. While he stood near the Kentucky bench, awaiting the call to accept the championship trophy after the game, Hall said, "I pushed them so hard for four years, I hope it was worth it."

Later, he denied there was any special significance to the statement.

"This is what it's all about," he said. "it's a lifelong ambition for a coach. And it's immortalization for those players in Kentucky."

Immortalization. And for winning a basketball game. What an awesome thought. No wonder there was so little time and opportunity to smile.

Yes, after the great victory, everyone celebrated and decided it had been worth the effort. The Wildcats had beaten five good teams under the greatest pressure of their lives, perhaps because of Hall's approach.

"I'm like a big, mean parent," the coach said. "I stay on them. No one knows how much guff they've taken from me. But I love every last one of them. All this talk about fun . . . no one gets to the Final Four without hard work."

Just then, Hall spotted reserve guard Jay Shidler dressing nearby.

"Did you have fun, Jay?" the coach called out.

Shidler looked up and smiled broadly. "Yeah, coach," he said. "We won, didn't we?"

And Joe B. Hall smiled.