Five Sugar Bowl Tournament championships, a National Invitation Tournament
title and seven trophies from the 1 1 previous UK Invitational Tournaments. Membership on the NCAA Basketball Rules Committee.
Rupp's Teams Play In Most Tournaments
Tournament invitations in pre-Rupp years were almost unheard ofKentucky played in only seven sectional eliminations. In contrast, the Rupp-led Wildcats have the distinction of playing in more tournaments of all types than any other team. All told, his Bluegrass fives have achieved the unequalled feat of 143 victories against only 40 defeats, covering action in 41 national classics plus 29 conference meets and the '48 Olympics.
Although the competition was nowhere near as rugged as the schedules played by today's nationally-recognized Wildcat brigades, Rupp's very first team compiled a highly-successful, 15-3 record and Kentucky basketball has been on a winning plane ever since. The most games lost in a single season since Rupp added his touch were nine in 1960-61 and again in 1962-63. The remarkably low average number of losses per season in the Rupp Era is three.
Rupp's teams have finished as national champion in the press association polls four times in the last 15 years. They were unranked in the top 20 only in the 1952-53 campaign, when they were idle, and in 1962-63. Possibly his greatest achievement came in the 1953-54 season when the Wildcats rolled unchecked through a 25-game schedule of top-flight opposition to become the biggest-winning, perfect-record unit in all basketball history up to that time.
Rivaling that achievement, in the opinion of the sportswriters and broadcasters, is the tremendous coaching jobs turned in by the basketball miracle man in more recent seasons. Eight years ago, Rupp guided a moderately talented club to an 1 8th SEC title, third place in the polls and a ninth NCAA Tournament appearance while achieving a 23-5 record. The surprised experts, who had predicted UK would not win its own conference, voted Coach Rupp the runner-up spot as 1957 "Coach of the Year."
Even that effort went by the boards in 1958, however, as Kentucky's talentless wonders copped the NCAA title for an unprecedented fourth time. The Wildcats were unsung and almost unknown except by reputation and heritage. Not a single man had been honored on the All-Conference fives selected before tournament time and they had lost more games (6) in regular season play than any UK team in 17 years.
Wins National 'Coach of Year' Honor
If the experts thought that was tops in miracles, they reckoned without the amazing drive of this man Rupp. With four-fifths of his starting lineup gone, he re-built shattered foundations in such an astonishing fashion that the Wildcats rolled through the 1959 season almost unchecked. Although they failed to win the title in their increasingly-tough Southeastern Conference for only the third time since 1943, UK was generally conceded to be the nation's top team. Most experts agreed that the Kentuckians, who finished with a 24-3 record and ranked second nationally, missed a golden opportunity to pick up a fifth NCAA crown as they were upset by Louisville in the tourney opener. This feeling was given meaning as Rupp was accorded "Coach of the Year" honor by United Press International.
The 1959-60 season admittedly was not a great one as the UKats chalked up only an 1 8-7 marksecond worst season of the Rupp Era. However, many experts considered the outcome to be a tribute to one of the greatest coaching efforts ever turned in. Plagued from the beginning of the season to the end by adversity (sickness, injuries, eligibility difficulties and personnel problems), complete disaster was always imminent and avoided only by masterful juggling (16 different starting combos) and artful strategy moves.
It was a similar story of great coaching technique against the heavy odds of personnel and schedule in 1960-61.  Although the final record read only 19-9, a closer
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