Pa$e 5
- Reprinted from Deseret News
Last-minute blocks by Walker, Wennington lead teams to wins
Next up /or Sf. Johns, Kentucky is confrontation in Denver
By Kurt Kragthorpe
Deseret News sports writer
Kentucky forward Kenny Walker and St. John's center Bill Wennington will never qualify for membership in the Macho Shot-Blockers Club if they keep talking like this.
"I think they were kind of stunned," said Walker. "I know I was."
"I had my eyes closed," noted Wennington.
Their blocks came a little more than two hours apart Saturday in the Special Events Center, as they sent East-bound shots from Nevada-Las Vegas and Arkansas players due West. That's the opposite direction of Denver, where Kentucky and St. John's are now headed for the NCAA West Regionals Friday.
Both blocks helped save three-point victories, Kentucky holding off UNLV 64-61 after St. John's had downed Arkansas 68-65.
Trailing by one point with 55 seconds remaining, Nevada-Las Vegas called a timeout, then worked the clock down into the high 20s before 6-foot-8 center Richie Adams took a pass on the baseline.
"That's what we wanted to do," coach Jerry Tarkanian would say later. "We had been in what we call our overload offense for most of the game, but for one shot we went to a 1-3-1, and got Adams the ball on the baseline."
Adams was in his favorite place, about 10 feet to the right of the basket. Left-handed flip
shots from that spot had made him a two-time
PCAA player of the year and helped carry the Rebels to a 23-3 record this season.
"He got the perfect shot," Tarkanian noted.
Trouble was, Walker made the perfect block.
He knocked the ball back over Adams' head, and Kentucky forward Richard Madison chased it down on the endline and saved it from going out of bounds with a pass to guard James Blackmon. He relayed the ball to guard Roger Harden and, by this time, the 6-8 Walker was streaking toward the other end. Walker got a lob pass for a dunk and was fouled with 21 seconds remaining.
Walker missed his free throw, but Kentucky still had a 62-59 lead and Madison's two free throws with nine seconds left wrapped things up.
"He's made that kind of play all year," insisted Wildcat coach Joe B. Hall about Walker, who led all scorers with 23 points. "His defense, on occasion, has been as great as his offense. When you need a great play, he finds it."
Said Tarkanian, "Nobody else on the floor could have blocked it We should have gone to the other side."
Actually, Walker was on the other side as the play developed, sliding across when the pass came to Adams. "I was able to come in from the weak side and time the ball," noted
Walker, who averaged about one block a game
this season. "I was glad he moved out a Little. If he had gotten in a little closer, he might have dunked it on me."
As if by design, Walker's block was just soft enough. "Everybody just stopped for a minute, thinking the ball would go out of bounds," he noted. "It was a good thing I didn't block it too hard."
Wennington's block for St. John's of a William Mills shot in the lane also had the right touch, the Redmen gaining possession with a three-point lead. They proceeded to run nearly half the remaining time off the clock before Chris Mullin's two free throws made it 66-61 with just 36 seconds left.
After joking with the media  as he had done all weekend  that he had his eyes closed, the 7-foot Wennington admitted, "I knew it was Mills. He drove in and I stepped up."
To cut off the 6-foot-7 Mills' drive, Wennington had to gamble and leave his assigned man, Arkansas center Joe Kleine. Kleine's turnaround jumper had brought the Razorbacks within 62-61 with 1:32 left, before Mike Moses countered with two free throws for St. John's.
On Arkansas' next trip downcourt, the ball never reached Kleine. Mills drove into the lane and went up with a shot toward the "Denver" basket but, just as Walker would do in the second game to UNLV, Wennington sent Arkansas in the other direction.
Kenny Walker
- Reprinted from Deseret News
'Cinderella'Kentucky tops UNLV
By Mike Sorensen
Deseret News sports writer_
It's been a long time since Kentucky coach Joe B. Hall has been carried off the floor on the shoulders of his players. And its been even longer, as in never, that Kentucky has been referred to as the "Cinderella team" in an NCAA basketball tournament, or any tournament for that matter.
But that's what they're calling the Wildcats after their 64-61 upset victory over Nevada-Las Vegas Saturday in the Special Events Center. At the end of a post-game press conference, when a writer asked if Kentucky was this year's Cinderella team, Hall grinned and said, "I hope so. Say that," and walked off in the direction of Denver, next week's site of the West Regional.
It's two down and two to go for the team that wasn't even supposed to be in this year's NCAA tourney. Thanks to Kenny "Sky" Walker and a couple of wet-behind-the-ears freshmen, the Wildcats are just two wins away from a Final Four appearance on their home floor at Lexington's Rupp Arena, after defeating their second western opponent in three days.
Afterward, all the plaudits were going to Walker, certainly the best college player to play on the Special Events Center hardwoods in some time. He was the one who was invited to the interview room to speak to all the writers, the one who was interviewed on TV by Billy Packer and Dick Stockton.
After all it was Walker, who led his
team in points and rebounds, just like he has all season. This time the numbers were 23 and 6. And it was Walker, who came up with the key play of the game, when he came flying across the court to block Richie Adams' attempt to put the Rebels ahead with a half minute to go. But it was the freshmen, who came up with some key plays of their own to keep the Kentucky season alive for another week.
Ed Davender, an 18-year-old out of Brooklyn, who somehow got away from the grasp of St. John's Lou Car-nesecca, came up with the big plays that broke the Rebels' backs and Jerry Tarkanian's heart long before Walker's big block.
It was Davender who scored 11 of the Wildcats' 17 points over a six-minute stretch when the Wildcats went from a 38-36 deficit into a 53-48 lead. Three of the baskets were on reverse layups when he went around the left side of the UNLV defense, came back under the basket for a reverse layup on the right side. Those were the baskets that had Tarkanian stomping his foot on the sideline and lamenting about after the game.
"Where we got hurt was when we gave them the three baskets around the 8-10 minute mark, when they drove the baseline and we didn't cut them off," said Tarkanian. "We gave up some easy baskets, where we should have stepped in and taken the charge. Other than that we played pretty well."
"Ed Davender, what can I say about him. He was just sensational with all
those baskets on the baseline," gushed Walker of his young teammate.
The other freshman, who hurt the Rebels was Richard Madison. He scored just 7 points in the game, but two of them came on foul shots with nine seconds left and his team leading by just a point. It was also Madison who was the unsung hero on Walker's big block with 30 seconds left.
After Walker came out of nowhere to block Adams' shot, it was Madison, who came running across to retrieve the loose ball just before it went out of bounds. Just before he fell over the endline, Madison threw the ball into James Blackmon, who hit Roger Harden, who subsequently hit Walker, sprinting ahead of the Rebel defense following his block. He scored the layup to put his team up by three points with 21 seconds to go.
Walker was fouled on the play, but missed his free throw try. UNLV came hurrying down the floor and cut the lead to 62-61 with 14 seconds left. Madison then hit his free throws at the nine-second mark and UNLV couldn't score in the final few seconds.
It was an uphill battle all afternoon for the Runnin' Rebels, who had the "Runnin" taken away from them by the quick-to-get-back Kentucky defenders and their packed-in 2-3 zone, which forced the Rebels to shoot the 18-to-20-foot jump shots.
After falling behind by seven at 17-10, the Rebels appeared to be on their way when they scored 10 straight points, while the Wildcats went scoreless for more than four minutes. But
the three-point edge turned out to be the their biggest lead of the day.
The Wildcats bounced back from that deficit to outscore the Rebs 9-2 and go up 26-22. The Rebels came back to take a 30-28 lead on a Spoon James' jumper with eight seconds left, but Blackmon tied it at 30 with an 18-footer at the buzzer.
In the second half, the score was tied every two points from 30 to 42, before Davender got loose with a couple of his baseline drives. After that, the Rebels never caught up again. The weight of Western basketball (only one other Western team, UTEP, is left in the NCAAs) must've just too much for them to carry.
Now it's on to Denver for the Wildcats, who had been criticized from many corners for being allowed in the NCAA event in the first place with their mediocre 16-12 regular-season record. They were, in fact, the second-lowest seeded of all the at-large teams in the tourney. But the Wildcats certainly have proved their worthiness, although Hall claims they've had nothing to prove this week.
"We never doubted for a moment that we deserved to be here," he said "We just happy to get this far. This team keeps amazing me the way they can play and win."
On the other hand, Walker said the Wildcats did have something to prove this week because of the criticism received. "That's what makes winning so sweet," said Walker, "because so many people said we shouldn't be in the NCAAs."