xt77h41jhr7f https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt77h41jhr7f/data/mets.xml University of Kentucky 1955  athletic publications English University of Kentucky Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. University of Kentucky Basketball Media Guides (Men) Basketball, 1955 text Basketball, 1955 1955 2012 true xt77h41jhr7f section xt77h41jhr7f FOR PRESS, RADIO AND TV 1954-55 KENTUCKY BASKETBALL SCHEDULE
		1954-55	
Date		Opponent	Site
19 5 4			
Dec.	4	* Louisiana State ........	.................. Lexington
Dec.	1 1	Xavier .......................	Cincinnati (Garden)
Dec.	18	Temple .....................	.................. Lexington
Dec.	21,	22 U.K. Invitational Tournament	
		(LaSalle, Southern	Calif., Utah,
		and Kentucky)	................... Lexington
Dec.	30		.................. Lexington
19 5 5			
Jan.	1	Temple         Philadelphia (Convention Hall)	
Jan.	8	Georgia Tech ...........	.................. Lexington
Jan.	10	DePaul .....................	
Jan.	15	Tulane ......................	.............. New Orleans
Jan.	17	Louisiana State .........	.............. Baton Rouge
Jan.	22	Tennessee ................	................... Knoxville
Jan.	29	Vanderbilt ................	................... Nashville
Jan.	31	Georgia Tech ............	...................... Atlanta
Feb.	3	Florida ......................	.................. Lexington
Feb.	5	Mississippi ................	................... Memphis
Feb.	7	Mississippi State .......	............. State College
Feb.	9	Georgia .....................	.................. Lexington
Feb.	14	Xavier.......................	................... Lexington
Feb.	19	DePaul .....................	Chicago (Stadium)
Feb.	21	Vanderbilt ................	.................. Lexington
Feb.	26	Auburn .....................	.................. Lexington
Feb.	28	Alabama ...................	................... Lexington
Mar	5	Tennessee .................	................... Lexington
* Game will not count in SEC standings.
(Kentucky's home games in Memorial Coliseum begin at 8 p.m. CST. Doubleheaders on both nights of the Invitational Tournament will start at 7:30 p.m. Freshmen preliminary games are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m.)
UNDEFEATED NATIONAL CHAMPIONS1953-54
SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS UK INVITATIONAL TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS University of Kentucky 1954-55
For Press and Radio
Prepared and Edited By SPORTS   PUBLICITY OFFICE Ken Kuhn, Sports Publicity Editor Bill Surface, Student Assistant
TELEPHONE: 2-2200, Ext. 2241 Memorial Coliseum TABLE OF CONTENTS
Facts About the University .......................................................... 3
Rupp Sketch ................................................................................46
Lancaster Sketch ..........................................................................7-8
Kentucky Basketball Coaches ...................................................... 9
Outlook Story ..........................................................................10-12
Lettermen Lost, Returning .......................................................... 13
Resume of '54 Season ..............................................................14-16
Rupp Era Record ........................................................................ 17
U.K. Invitational Tournament ..................................................18-19
Kentucky's Tournament Record ................................................20-21
Press-Radio-TV Outlets ................................................................ 21
All-Conference Players ................................................................ 22
All-Americans, Helms Selections .................................................. 23
Records Held By Kentucky (National and SEC) ........................24-29
.All-Opponent Team,  1953-54 .................................................. 30
Freshmen Schedule ...................................................................... 30
Squad Breakdown By Classes ........................................................ 30
Recap of 1953-54 Season (Quarter Scoring) ................................ 31
Roster  Varsity ........................................................................ 32
Roster  Freshmen .................................................................... 33
Statistics (Final), 1953-54 ............................................................ 34
Atlanta Journal Pre-Season Poll .................................................. 35
SEC Standings (Final), 1953-54 .................................................. 36
Lederer Trophy, Chandler Trophy ................................................ 36
.Polls (Final Ratings), 1953-54 ...................................................... 37
Background Briefs  Varsity ..................................................38-48
Background Briefs  Freshmen ................................................49-53
All-Time Scores ........................................................................54-65 FACTS ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
General Information
LOCATION  LEXINGTON, a community of about 100,000 located in the heart of Kentucky's famed Bluegrass region. Renowned: as the thoroughbred horse breeding center of the world, Lexington's surrounding countryside is dotted with famous horse farms. The city also is known as the world's largest loose-leaf tobacco^ market. It is located about 80 miles east of Louisville and 8S miles south of Cincinnati, Ohio.
FOUNDED  1865
ENROLLMENT  6,200
PRESIDENT  Dr. Herman Lee Donovan
VICE-PRESIDENT  Dr. Leo M. Chamberlain
FACULTY CHAIRMAN OF ATHLETICS  Dr. A. D. Kirwan
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC RELATIONS  R. W. Wild
ATHLETIC CONFERENCE  Southeastern
NICKNAME OF TEAMS  Wildcats
GYMNASIUM  Memorial Coliseum (capacity 1 1,500)
COLORS  Blue and White
FIGHT SONG  "On, On U of K"
BAND  "Marching 100" directed by Warren Lutz
Athletic Staff
ATHLETIC DIRECTOR  Bernie A. Shively (Illinois '27)
HEAD BASKETBALL COACH  Adolph Rupp (Kansas '23)
ASST. BASKETBALL COACH  Harry Lancaster (Georgetown '32)
HEAD FOOTBALL COACH  Blanton Collier (Georgetown '27)
TRAINER  John Payne (La. State '50)
EQUIPMENT MANAGER  S. C. (Buster) Brown
ACCOUNTANT  David Doyle
TICKET SALES MANAGER  Harvey Hodges (Kentucky '3D SPORTS PUBLICITY EDITOR  Ken Kuhn (Michigan State '46)
3 ADOLPH RUPP
'Maker of Champions'
Won 496, Lost 82  85.6%
The world's poorest prophet, but a coaching genius with a rare talent for consistently winning national championships.
That's University of Kentucky's fabulous cage mentor Adolph Rupp who this year celebrates his Silver Anniversary at the helm of
Wildcat basketball with an incomparable career winning average of 85.6 percent for 496 victories out of 578 starts.
Amazing as his coaching success has been, the usually astute Baron Rupp found himself on the losing end as a prophet last season. The Wildcats of 1954 made a clean sweep through a 25-game schedule and disproved their coach's prophecy of several years ago that "no major school playing a major schedule can go through a season un-feated."
The "impossible" feat of last year's Kentucky team in becoming the biggest-winning, perfect-record unit of all time climaxed an unparalleled honor roll of coaching success that has stamped Rupp as the nation's most winning cage mentor. In the 24 years he has been at Kentucky, he's won the Southeastern Conference title 15 times, the NCAA Tournament championship three times, and the National Invitation Tournament once as well as Olympic Trials collegiate bracket laurels and a nominal world's championship through participation with the AAU Phillips Oilers as the USA entry in the 1948 Olympic Games. Coach Rupp is the first and only coach to guide his teams to three NCAA and one NIT titles.
 Besides the distinction of an even 100 victories against only 21 defeats covering action in 21 national classics (NCAA, NIT, UK Invitational and Sugar Bowl Tournaments) plus 21 conference meets and the '48 Olympics, Rupp has guided his Wildcat teams to national championships in the Associated Press Poll four times in the last six years and produced no less than 24 All-Americans.
Furthermore, the UK mentor goes into the current season in possession of another record that no other coach or school comes even close to threatening124 consecutive wins on the home floor. No Rupp-coached Kentucky team has been beaten at home since Ohio State turned the trick on Jan. 2, 1943approximately 12 years ago.
The colorful Rupp is credited in most quarters with doing more than any other modern tutor to make basketball a national spectator sport. From the very outset of his career at Kentucky, which began in 1930, he has introduced or popularized many new and revised trends in the game that have aided materially in making the country basketball-minded. One such innovation was the controlled fast break offensive pattern which has since become the crowd-pleasing trademark of Wildcat cage teams.
Rupp has become, without a doubt, the best known and most widely quoted cage coach in America and his personal fame is equalled only by the success he has instilled in the highly-publicized Kentucky basketball powerhouses.
The Kentucky Colonel was named to the Commonwealth's Hall of Fame in 1945 and, in 1949, was honored as the outstanding citizen of the University city of Lexington. Active in civic affairs, he is a Past Potentate of the Oleika Temple of the Shrine and currently is a member of the board of directors of the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children. He was selected as one of the 10 outstanding Shriners of the nation in 1950 and holds honorary memberships in various temples of the order throughout the country.
Recognized internationally in registered Hereford breeding circles, Rupp has four farms near Lexington on which he maintains white-faced Hereford herds and raises fine burley tobacco. He is now in a second term as president of the Kentucky Hereford Association and serves on the board of directors of the Kentucky Hereford Breeders Assn. and the Bourbon Beef Show. The coach also is a director of the Central District Warehousing Corporation, world's largest tobacco marketing organization, and sits on the board directing activities of the Blue Grass Festival and Blue Grass Foundation.
5 In 1946, Coach Rupp was given the highest individual coaching honor in the cage world when he was elected to the Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame sponsored by the Helms Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles, Calif. The New York Basketball Writers' Association named him "Coach of the Year" for the re-building job he accomplished on the sophomore-studded 1949-50 Wildcats who succeeded the "Fabulous Five."
He was made an honorary citizen of New Orleans for the second time in 1951 and, at the same time, received the first plaque of appreciation ever awarded by the Sugar Bowl committee in recognition of his contributions to their annual tournament.
The Wildcat chief has written books on virtually every phase of the game of basketball, including a good seller entitled "Championship Basketball," and is in great demand during the off season to make speaking engagements and conduct clinics. He also has his own twice-weekly radio show during the season and often is referred to in the press by such titles as "Mr. Basketball," "The Bluegrass Baron of Basketball," and "The Man In The Brown Suit," the latter stemming from his superstitious preference of brown as the color of his game-night wardrobe.
Born in Halstead, Kansas, Sept. 2, 1901, Rupp attended the University of Kansas where he played guard under the firey Phog Allen. Following graduation in 1923, he coached high school ball one year at Marshalltown, Iowa, and then at Freeport, III., for four seasons before coming to Kentucky in 1930.
Although the competition was nowhere near as rugged as the schedules played by today's nationally-recognized Wildcat brigades, Rupp's very first team complied a respectable 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 was eight in 1940-41, but even that year was a winning campaign (17-8) and the remarkably low average number of losses per season in the Rupp Era is three.
Before Coach Rupp came on the scene, the Wildcats in 26 years won 196 games while losing 129. Tournament invitations were almost unheard of then. Kentucky played in only three and were eliminated each time.
Today, when one thinks of the sport of basketball, one thinks of Kentucky and Adolph Ruppmaker of champions.
0 HARRY LANCASTER
Assistant Coach
When Harry Lancaster finds a spare moment to reflect on his days as an all-around star athlete at Georgetown (Ky.) College back in the early thirties, he can recall with a degree of dismay how close
he came to never pursuing the "round ball" sport that in the days since has earned him a somewhat unique position in the basketball world.
An All-Conference halfback for three straight years and captain during his last two seasons, Lancaster's football career almost overshadowed his play on the basketball court. In the cage sport, he was equally successfulwith three All-Conference nominations and two team captaincies to his creditbut considered himself a better football player than eager. Experience, however, proved him a good student and teacher of the sport of basketball as he began his coaching career and he now carries no regrets over the choice he made.
Lancaster bosses a promising group of yearling cagers and holds down the position of assistant varsity basketball coach and general right hand man to the fabulous Adolph Rupp. When he was made a full-time assistant by Coach Rupp in 1948, Lancaster joined a very select group due to the general scarcity of such positions at major colleges and universities. Even today, most teams rely on only part-time assistants.
Born in Paris, Ky., in 1911, Lancaster attended Paris High School where he played four years in all sports, being coached at one time by Kentucky's current Head Football Coach Blanton Collier. Following graduation in 1928, he continued his athletic career at Georgetown College and gained star recognition in football, basketball and baseball. After finishing at Georgetown in '32, Harry remained on for the next school year as an assistant coach in both the grid and cage sports be-
7 fore moving into the high school field. He coached several sports, mostly basketball, for nine years and was a high school principal for six years before coming to the University of Kentucky in 1942 as an instructor in physical education.
Soon thereafter, the war intervened and Lancaster saw 26 months' Navy duty, rising from apprentice seaman to Lieutenant (Senior Grade). Returning to UK, he became a part-time assistant to the Wildcats' famous cage mentor, Adolph Rupp, in addition to carrying on his teaching duties and studying for his master's degree. He also served as Kentucky's baseball coach in 1946-47 and picked up the assignment again starting with the 1951 campaign.
He was promoted to full-time Assistant Varsity Basketball Coach in 1948 upon Coach Rupp's recommendation. In addition to his coaching duties, Lancaster manages to sandwich in a large slice of traveling. Besides checking on the nation's best high school cagers as potential material for future Wildcat national champion crews, his travel stems from a plan to extensively scout upcoming opponents. Coach Rupp was one of the first in the country to inaugurate this widespread scouting system in basketball and believes it has contributed materially to Kentucky's past success in carrying off championships with almost reckless abandon.
Lancaster also traveled to Greece in the summer of 1951 on a special athletic assignment for the U. S. State Department. The mission called for the Kentucky aide to act as an advisor to Greek Basketball Federation officials on Olympic procedure and other matters. He also conducted numerous clinics, coaching schools and gave public lectures on the cage sport as played in the U.S.A.
Lancaster's coaching success with his freshmen teams has been commendable. The yearlings have lost only two contests under his tutelage and go into the current season with a record of no losses since Kentucky Wesleyan turned the trick back in the 1 949-50 season.
8 KENTUCKY BASKETBALL COACHES
(With Season Record)
1905 F. E. Schacht (1-1)
1906 W. H. Mustaine (4-8)
1907 W. H. Mustaine (2-4)
1908 W. H. Mustaine (5-6)
1909 W. H. Mustaine (4-4)
1910 E. R. Sweetland (4-5) 191 1Iddings (6-6)
1912 E. R. Sweetland (9-0)
1913 J. J. Tigert (6-3)
1914 Alpha Brummage (9-2)
1915 Alpha Brummage (7-5)
1916 James Park (8-6)
1917 W. P. Tuttle (4-6)
1918 S. A. Boles (9-2-1)
1919 Andrew Gill (6-8)
1920 Geo. C. Buchheit (5-7)
1921 Geo. C. Buchheit (13-1)
1922 Geo C. Buchheit (10-6)
1923 Geo. C. Buchheit (3-10)
1924 Geo. C. Buchheit (13-2)
1925 C. O. Applegran (13-8)
1926 Ray Eklund (13-2)
1927 Basil Hayden (2-13)
1928 John Mauer (12-6)
1929 John Mauer (12-5) * No schedule played.
1930-	John Mauer (16-3)		
1931-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (1 5-3)
1932-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (15-2)
1933-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (20-3)
1 934-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (15-1)
1935-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (19-2)
1936-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (15-6)
1 937-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (17-5)
1938-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (13-5)
1939-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (16-4)
1940-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (15-6)
1941-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (17-8)
1942-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (19-6)
1943-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (18-5)
1944-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (19-2)
1945-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (22-4)
1946-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (28-2)
1947-	Adolph	F.	Rupp (34-3)
1948-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (36-3)
1949-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (32-2)
1950-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (25-5)
1951-	Adolph	F.	Rupp (32-2)
1952-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (29-3)
1953-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (*)
1954-	-Adolph	F.	Rupp (25-0)
 the group are Gerry Calvert, 5-11 guard; and Sonny Corum, 5-10 guard.
With the personnel available limited in experience and the losses greatest suffered by any team in the country, Coach Rupp foresees a big re-building job ahead this season. "We can't possibly be as strong this winter as we were last year," he declared. "I doubt that we will ever be that good again and probably nobody else will be either. That was my idea of an ideal team in every respect. We had a great first team, plus enough reserve power to carry on when we needed to make substitutions."
The transplanted Kansan, who has moulded championship calibre teams with amazing regularity since he took over Kentucky's cage dynasty 24 years ago, observed that the '55 Wildcats "may run into early-season difficulties because our team will lack experience at the start. However, I think we could have a very fine team by the middle of January with a little luck.
"I am not at all gloomy over our prospects," he continued, "despite the fact we lost the best three men in America and must play possibly the strongest schedule of any team in the nation. We apparently are not very highly regarded and we are not picked to be among the best in the country by any of the pre-season polls I have seen. But I suspect our boys will be getting more than an average share of mention when all the shouting is over."
Exactly how this year's edition of the Wildcats will line up for the opening gun is a problem that the Kentucky mentor may not fully decide before mid-season. Capt. Evans, who operated at forward last season, probably will be shifted to a guard post to make room for more rebounding height on the back line. Once this key fits into place, the rest of the lineup might see Grawmeyer and Bird at forwards, Burrow at center and either Puckett or Rose at the other guard location. However, sophomore Mills could break into the starting group at forward if Bird beats Burrow out for the pivot spot.
And there are seemingly endless other combinations available too, all of which leads Kentucky's opponents to fear that Coach Rupp may prove as poor a prophet as he was last season in reiterating a previous prediction that no school playing a major schedule could go through a season undefeated.
12 1953-54 LETTERMEN LOST
Frank Ramsey ...
Cliff Hagan .......
Lou Tsioropoulos
Willie Rouse .....
Hugh Coy ..........
All-American Guard All-American Center
..... Starting Forward
........ Reserve Guard
...... Reserve Forward
RETURNING LETTERMEN
Billy Evans  Senior ............................................................ Forward
Gayle Rose  Senior .............................................................. Guard
Linville Puckett  Junior ...................................................... Guard
Phil Grawemeyer  Junior .................................................. Forward
Jerry Bird  Junior .................................................. Center-Forward
Billy Bibb  Junior .............................................................. Forward
RETURNING SQUADMEN
Harold Hurst  Junior .......................................................... Center
*Bob Burrow  Junior .......................................................... Center
Dan Chandler  Junior .......................................................... Guard
Charles Hadden  Junior ...................................................... Guard
RETURNING NUMERAL MEN
Ray Mills .................................................................. Center-Forward
Earl Adkins .......................................................................... Forward
John Brewer ............................................................................ Guard
Gerry Calvert .......................................................................... Guard
Paul Corum ............................................................................ Guard
FRESHMEN CANDIDATES
(Not Eligible For Varsity Competition)
***Jay Bayless .................................................................... Forward
Ed Beck ................................................................................ C_enter,
John Butcher .......................................................................... Guard
Billy Cassady .......................................................................... Guard
Lincoln Collinsworth ................................................................ Guard
John Crigler ........................................................................ Forward
Vernon Hatton ....................................................................... Guard
Dick Howe ................................................................ Forward-Center
Phil Johnson ........................................................................ Forward
Phil Phelps .......................................................................... Forward
Harold Ross .......................................................................... Forward
Leon Sczepanski .................................................................... Center
Bill Smith ............................................................................ Forward
Dwayne Wingler .................................................................... Guard
* Junior College Transfer. " * * Not eligible for freshman play this season.
L3 LOOKING BACK
(A Resume of Wildcats' Undefeated 1953-54 Season)
When a team makes a liar out of its coach, it can generally be stamped as "great" or worthy of the dubious title "goat."
The question of the appropriateness of one classification or the other would seem to be academic when the coach is none other than Baron Adolph Rupp, the nation's winningest basketball coach with a record of being right better than 85 percent of the time over the past 24 years.
But when the team is University of Kentucky's pride-of-the-Bluegrass cagers and the situation involves an oft-repeated assertion by their coach that no collegiate quintet can expect to go undefeated through a lengthy schedule of all-major competition, you can take the word of "Mr. Basketball" himself that the tab of greatness is what rightfully belongs to the incomparable 1954 Wildcats.
The Kentuckians upset the predictions of the best brains in the business during the past campaign by breezing through their 24-game regular season schedule without defeat and, for the most part, without being seriously extended. Then, without batting an eyelash, they went into a unique playoff game and polished off an upstart Louisiana State five that brashly disputed their claim to a 15th Southeastern Conference championship.
Playoff Made Necessary
If not for the fact that only the conference champion is eligible for the NCAA tournament, no playoff would have been necessary after both Kentucky and LSU finished their conference schedules unbeaten. The conference has no objection to shared honors of a titular sort. The Wildcats and Tigers did not meet in regular season due to a dispute of where the contest should be played.
Having mastered LSU in what many experts maintained was the best game they ever saw, the Wildcats withdrew from the NCAA tournament. The collegiate governing body refused to allow Kentucky's "Big Three" to participate on grounds they studied too hard. The actual rule, not applicable in the Southeastern Conference, bars postgraduate athletes from competing in NCAA-sponsored tournaments.
14 Thus disqualified were 6-foot, 4-inch Cliff Hagan, 6-3 Frank Ramsey and 6-5 Lou Tsioropoulus. They scored 600, 490 and 363 points, respectively, representing 66 percent of the team's scoring punch.
The decision to bow out of the tournament was, for the most part, heartily applauded as a sensible stand by UK authorities who had contended that an exception should be made in the case of the three boys, due to the fact that the NCAA itself was to blame for the predicament. Kentucky officials reasoned that it was the NCAA's suspension of two-seasons ago that created the situation of three good students finishing their scholastic work before their athletic eligibility ran out. And, it was further pointed out, the governing body's decision to disallow the three UK stars essentially made a farce of rules requiring athletes to make "normal progress" toward degrees. Except for the National' Collegiate Athletic Association rule which that body refused to waive on appeal by Kentucky, the Wildcats would have been strong, if not prohibitive favorites, for their fourth NCAA crown since 1948.
NCAA Champs Lost To Kentucky
With the Wildcats out of the national tournament picture, Holy Cross walked off with championship honors in the National Invitation and LaSalle's Explorersbeaten soundly by Kentucky in the UK Invitational Tournament last Decembercame through to gain the NCAA title. But experts the country over placed the final stamp of greatness directly on the Ruppmen by naming them national champions over both of the major tournament winners. "01' Kaintuck" was given top ranking in the Associated Press poll for the fourth time in six years and the Helms Athletic Foundation named the Cats as the nation's best basketball team for the fifth time in history and fourth time in the last seven years. Only the United Press, which conducted its poll among the nation's cage coaches and made final rankings before tourney play began, ignored the country's lone undefeated quintet. This poll rated UK second to Indiana's Big 10 champs, a team, that had already lost three games during the regular season and was to be handed another loss in the NCAA Tournament.
In becoming the first major college team to complete its season undefeated since Long Island U. accomplished the minor miracle in 1938-39, Kentucky scored 2,187 points, battering its 25 opponents, by an average margin of 87.5 to 60.3. The Wildcats hit 100 points or better six times.   In true champions' style, the Cats rallied to over-
L5 come Louisiana State's four-point second half lead and win the conference title in the unprecedented playoff game, March 9, on Vander-bilt's neutral court in Nashville. The score was 63 to 56.
Kentucky's 25 wins came despite the lack of two very desirable ingredients winning basketball teams had  (1) a tall player of the goal-tender variety, and (2) a bench that, at the outset, lacked competitive experience.
It was Adolph Rupp's 24th year at Kentucky. Although he was a sick man at the end, it probably was not the last for this remarkable 52-year-old, Kansas-born coach. His teams have now won 496 games and lost 82, a winning average of 86 per cent. They haven't been on the short end at home in Lexington since 1943. Drawing 145,000 in 14 home games, Rupp's Cats extended that amazing streak to 124.
Wildcats Of '54 Greatest
Coach Rupp, who supposedly declared after UK's suspension in '53 that he'd not retire until his boys captured the NCAA tourney crown again, unhesitatingly called the 1954 Wildcats one of the great cage aggregations of all time and was inclined to think of them as his best team. This took in a lot of territory, however. Although this was Kentucky's first totally perfect season since 1912 (9-0) and represented a new national record for consecutive wins in an undefeated season, the veteran mentor pointed out that there have been numerous other Wildcat teams good in their day: The 1933-34 outfit that racked up a perfect regular season of 15 wins only to be upset in the first round of the SEC tournament; the 1945-46 team that lost only two games, while rolling to the school's first national tournament (NIT) title; the Olympic crew of 1947-48 which engineered a brilliant 36-3 record and aided the successful effort of the United States to gain the world basketball championship; the Fabulous Five of 1948-49 that tried for a national tournament "Grand Slam"; and the 1950-51 team that made Kentucky the first team to win three NCAA and one NIT title and which won a record of 39 Vi games and lost only two during regular season, tournament play and an exhibition tour in Puerto Rico.
Just how good the 1954 crew of Kentucky basketeers was may never be known.
16 THE RUPP ERA 1930-54
Season Kentucky
1930- 31 ............ 15
1931- 32 ............ 15
1932- 33 ............ 20
1933- 34 ............ 15
1934- 35 ............ 19
1935- 36 ............ 15
1936- 37 ............ 17
1937- 38 ............ 13
1938- 39 ............ 16
1939- 40 ............ 15
1940- 41 ............ 17
1941- 42 ............ 19
1942- 43 ............ 18
1943- 44 ............ 19
1944- 45 ............ 22
1945- 46 ............ 28
1946- 47 ............ 34
1947- 48 ............ 36
1948- 49 ............ 32
1949- 50 ............ 25
1950- 51 ............ 32
1951- 52 ............ 29
1952- 53 ............ (N
1953- 54 ............ 25
Percent
.833 .882 .870 .938 .905 .714 .774 .722 .800 .714 .680 .760 .783 .905 .846 .933 .918 .923 .941 .833 .941 .906
o schedule played) 0 ............1.000
Opponents
3 ......
2 ......
3 ......
1 ......
2 ......
6 ......
5 ......
5 ......
4 ......
6 ......
8 ......
6 ......
5 ......
2 ......
4 ......
2 ......
3 ......
3 ......
2 ......
5 ......
2 ......
3 ......
24-Year Total .. 496
82
.858
Total PointsKentucky 33,183; Opponents 22,665 Game AverageKentucky 57.6; Opponents 39.2
IT UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY INVITATIONAL BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT
December 21-22, 1954  Memorial Coliseum
NCAA Champion LaSalle, Pacific Coast titlist Southern California and powerful Utah of the Skyline Conference, along with Kentucky's defending national champions, will be participants in the second annual University of Kentucky Invitational Basbetball Tournament carded for Memorial Coliseum on December 21 and 22.
The stellar lineup of four of the nation's top cage powers is expected to surpass in calibre virtually every other basketball tournament held since the Olympic Trials of 1948 because of the prospect of a rematch between LaSalle's Explorers and the Wildcats.
The inaugural two-night, four-team tournament last year, played before capacity audiences in UK's spacious Coliseum and resulting in .a national record tourney dividend of $8,200 to each participating team, saw Kentucky smash LaSalle for the championship and UCLA take the consolation title from Duke.
This season's meet will pair LaSalle against a good Southern California club and pits defending tournament champion Kentucky against a Utah outfit that is fast returning to their former level of national prominence.
Selection of teams to take part in the Kentucky tournament is based on considerations of national reputation in cage circles, potential calibre of play expected this season and the desire to give the holiday meet an intersectional flavor with a top team