One For The Record Book
As he removed the headset after his postgame radio show, Eddie Sutton looked Up, smiled and reminded a reporter, "I told you we were going to win this game ... but I certainly didn't think the margin would be anything like this."
Never let it be said Eddie Sutton doesn't enjoy a challenge. The man took on the world and replied in the best-coined Dick Vitale language. "Innnn your face, man."
So went the two-hour ordeal Saturday afternoon at Louisville's Freedom Hall. Some 19,000 die-hard Cardinal fans suffered through the horror flick while a national audience looked on via the CBS-TV network.
The final score of 85-51 was a true barometer of the beating Kentucky put on the Cardinals, not at Rupp Arena mind you, but right in the Birds' own backyard.
And if there is such a thing as "Big Brother vs. Little Brother", then you'd have a difficult time convincing anyone there's a better example than the one Saturday.
For the past 15 or so years, UK has been labeled the bad guys of college basketball in the Bluegrass State. You've heard the line, the Big Blue program is snobbish, overrated when compared to Louisville. Their fans arrogant even ignorant when it comes to judging how talented the Wildcats are.
Pause.
Kentucky 85, Louisville 51. Pause.
Repeat that score please.
UKeighty-five, U of Lfifty-one.
Sure, the Cardinals won the NCAA last season. Sure, Louisville won the 1980 title. Sure the Cardinals are the team of the '80s . . . except when they meet the Kentucky Wildcats ... on the court.
Fact:
The just-concluded four-game regular season series produced a 3-1 record for the University of Kentucky. Since the series started back in 1983, Kentucky has won four of five meetings (the other a victory in the Mideast Regional at Lexington). The only loss was a 71-64 decision in Louisville when Kentucky was rebuilding in its 18-13 season.
These are figures you're not likely to read in certain sports columns (no names please). They have their own reasons for quoting other statistics. And not to confuse you like others might, we shall note that the overall mark is 4-2 in Kentucky's favor when you count Louisville's big 80-68 overtime victory in the finals of the Mideast Regional at Knoxville in 1983. That was the game which most give credit for the just concluded four-year series.
That was the game in which Louisville entered the contest as an eight-point favorite and the nation's No. 2-ranked team. Kentucky, on the other hand, forced the game into overtime with Jim Master's jumper at the end of regulation. Actually, Kentucky had the opportunity to win the game with less than 25 seconds left in regulation and the score tied, but guard Dirk Minniefield took an ill-advised shot, missed and Louisville quickly scored before Master's shot tied the game.
Louisville won in a breeze during the five-minute overtime.
Louisville's domination of the Kentucky Wildcats, according to some, was just around the corner. It hasn't exactly worked out that way.
This is not to contend Louisville is Kentucky's "little brother" on the court. Far from it.
Yes, the Cards appeared to be "baby brother" last Saturday, but we did not see the real Louisville team this particular day.
Comparing programs is another matter.
When you talk of one of the nation's top teams, you speak of a team's ability to compete on the court only. Louisville certainly ranks right up there at the top much like Georgetown and North Carolina.
When you talk of the nation's top programs. you automatically inject features other than just won-loss records and championships, such as:
* Widespread fan support which certainly goes beyond a county borderline. A recent statewide poll by the Louisville Courier-Journal indicates the Cardinals enjoy less than five percent of the public's support outside of Jefferson County.
* Kentucky attracts crowds of 12,000 and more for a public shooting practice before its annual home game at Freedom Hall in Louisville. That figure could be shattered this week when UK prepares to take on Georgia.
* The first weekly collegiate sports publication on a university began in Lexington in September. 1976. when Tlie Cats' Pause began publishing. With a paid circulation of more than 20.000. TCP ranks as the top weekly newspaper in the state and among the top seven newspapers, including the state's daily newspapers. TCP still ranks as the No. 1 circulated collegiate sports weekly in the nation.
* Kentucky's basketball television network is beamed into seven different markets in four states, second only to Notre Dame football.
* Kentucky is the all-time leader in college basketball victories, in all-time NCAA appearances.
* Kentucky has more All-Americans than any other college. Thirty-one different Wildcats have won the honors a total of 49 times.
When you talk of tradition. Kentucky certainly has no match around these parts. As one bystander quipped last week, when you talk about tradition and history, you start at the beginning not where it's convenient to produce a better record.
Now if you talk only in terms of on-the-court success, that's another matter.
As Louisville coach Denny Crum correctly pointed out last week, UL has been the hoop team of the '80s, winning two NCAA titles and going to the Final Four four different times as compared to UK not winning a single NCAA in the '80s and only one Final Four.
True, but the statement is incomplete.
You can do anything with numbers, like conveniently starting with 1980. Why not go over a ten-year period back to 1976 and include UK's NIT title and Kentucky's 1978 NCAA title. Of course, that takes a little of the lustre off the bragging rights.
Since we're talking of numbers, why not dwell on head-to-head confrontations. Since the fall of 1983, Kentucky has won four of five against the Cardinals. The only loss came at Louisville in a contest which the Cards were expected to skin the 'Cats in double digits and escape by seven. There have been only two blowouts, both in UK's favor.
In head-to-head coaching confrontations, Eddie Sutton is now 4-1 against Crum. See how statistics can lead to a different conclusion?
Kentucky's 85-51 victory Saturday did more than just give Big Blue fans bragging rights for another year. The 34-point embarrassment will probably remain in the record books for the rest of Denny Crum's reign in Cardinal Country.
And that's not a knock.
Quite frankly, I didn't believe I would ever see the day that a Denny Crum-coached team would lose by 30 points, either at home or on the road unless he was playing with all walk-ons.
Here's betting you will never see a repeat.
The 34-point loss goes down in the record books as the Cardinals' worst loss in the 30-year history of Freedom Hall. It is also the worst loss during the Crum era. home or away. His previous worst loss was a 22-point decision (North Carolina in 1980).
It is the worst Louisville defeat at home since January 29. 1940 when the Cards lost to Evansville, 80-43.
When last did the Cards lose by a bigger margin? That was at Xavier on February 13, 1956 when UL lost 99-59.
Although Kentucky and Louisville only revived the regular season series back in 1983. the Wildcats did meet the Cards back in the 1920s. The Cards' worst defeat at the hands of UK prior to Saturday was another 34-point loss, back in 1948 in the Olympic Trials.
Entering that game back in 1948. the Cardinals of coach Bernard "Peck" Hickman were 29-5 with three of the losses coming at the expense of Western Kentucky and one at the hands of Murray State.
Earlier in the week, UK coach Eddie Sutton announced Kentucky had put in the mail a new four-year contract for a game with the Cardinals with the first and third games to be played at Rupp Arena and the second and fourth games to be staged in Louisville.
That piece of strategy apparently caught the media and some Louisville officials by surprise as many believed UK would attempt to wiggle out of signing a new deal.
Sutton then went on the offensive by saying that the series is good for college basketball, but that Kentucky would not be crippled if the game ceased to be.
That's when Sutton said Kentucky basketball is bigger than the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys, that Kentucky is big brother with UL being little brother because of all the past tradition.
Sutton's contention that Wildcat basketball is bigger than the Yankees and Cowboys is perhaps true if you limit the scope to the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
But when you talk about the nation as a whole, Eddie certainly was off base. At least temporarily.
After watching the 'Cats enjoy a holiday feasting of bird meat Saturday, one isn't tempted to challenge Mr. Perm. Perhaps he knew all along he would have ample ammunition to fend off the poison media pens Saturday evening about 6 p.m. The scribes certainly were there, armed with swords to destroy the terrible Big Brother.
It was only poetic justice that the great heavyweight boxing champion Muhammand Ali was among the 19,000-plus fans at Freedom Hall. During an early timeout of the game, Ali was introduced to a thunderous
ovation. Ali, the king of kings and a man who backed up his boasts time after time throughout his career, waved gingerly to the fans.
Perhaps a new Ali has arrived in Kentucky. Could his name be Eddie Sutton?
Louisville officials can't seem to agree on how to approach this thing call Kentucky versus Louisville.
On one hand, UL athletics director Bill Olsen wants the game to be part of a big circus, split the tickets between schools and put special premiums on the tickets, hold clinics, etc.
Part of that emphasis can be attributed to the fervor-pitch atmosphere surrounding the game Saturday. Regulars at the Cards' home games said UL considers this the ONLY game during the regular season.
Crum, on the other hand, says the game is just another game and that the ones in March are the ones which really count.
During his post game press conference he reiteriated his stand by saying that the Cards lost to UK last December only to win the NCAA. Crum said he doubted that Sutton wouldn't trade the December win for the NCAA title. -
Placed on every seat in Freedom Hall prior to the game was a "Catbusters" poster with a Cardinal clutching the NCAA title trophy in one hand while jerking at the blue tail of what appeared to be a Wildcat.
One UL fan. Denis Robinson, sat silently in Freedom Hall after the game and was quoted in the Sunday edition of the Louisville Courier-Journal as saying, "It hurts. I'd rather beat Kentucky than win the NCAA."
What was that old slogan. No. 1 in the nation but No. 2 in Kentucky?
Brent Musburger and Billy Packer of CBS-TV were more than impressed with Kentucky in general and Rex Chapman in particular.
You can bet Kentucky will be the hottest product for national television the next four years, thanks to Rex Chapman and Derrick Miller and the recruiting harvest Eddie Sutton is already assured of.
With UK's national television debut this season last Saturday, officials at rival networks like NBC-TV, ABC-TV, ESPN, USA, etc., no doubt have seen the potential this club possesses for the future.
Musburger offered a prediction that Chapman could set a record for television's MVP game awards over the next four years and the CBS crew likened him to a young Jerry West.
While CBS loved the pre-game hype, one has to wonder how Musburger felt about bumping Gary Bender from the play-by-play role when the game turned into a rout early in the second half.
Bender was originally scheduled to work the game according to one of Bender's friends at the game, but Musburger pulled rank for what figured to be a barn-burner to the end.
A tip of the hat to all the Louisville Car-[Continued On Page 26]