Pitino says he regrets what he told the team right before the Laettener shot

[Caveman Catfan]

“I am thinking about becoming a vegetarian.”

 

[trueblujr2]

All he could have done better is put a man on Grant Hill, making it harder for him to throw that inbound pass.

This. His biggest regret should have been telling the team to not guard the inbounds pass. Laettener wasn't going to miss those free throws either.

 

[Caveman Catfan]

“Hey, guys, quiet up. Any of you guys ever had sex on the table of a restaurant after hours? Just a thought. Now, don’t foul Laettner.”

 

[rick64]

The story I remember hearing was that Pitino wanted to double team Laettner with Pelphrey and Feldhaus. One in front and one behind him. They were confused on who was supposed to be where, and both ended up behind Laettner so he had a free look at the pass from Hill. And CBS STILL has that clip as part of their CBB intro to this day. 🤮

 

[Eagles_Ball]

All he could have done better is put a man on Grant Hill, making it harder for him to throw that inbound pass.

This makes it almost impossible to have success on the play they setup. That's all that had to happen. Put a guy on the ball.

 

[HagginHall1999]

Just for fun:

View embedded media

Tim Higgins, Charles Range, and Tom Clark were the refs. Range was the one who called Laettner for the tech but didn't toss him even though it was clearly an unsportsmanlike foul when the ball was dead, which warranted ejection. It was the last UK game Range ever officiated.

I was so stressed during that game that I kept dashing out to my back porch to try to calm down. I'll always feel bad for the UK players and coaches, especially Pitino.

Officiating was awful in that regional.

TBH we got a little help getting there too. That technical called on Cal was one of the worst I've ever seen. Out of the box in a 2 point game with 5 mins left...lol.

I mean I was thrilled at the time but if we are being honest it was a terrible call. Iirc correctly UMass had cut down a 20+ point lead and we were reeling. That call was a lifesaver.

 

[ftp000]

32 years ago. Time to move on.

We're like 6 weeks away from seeing over and over again. Maybe after that.

 

[BlueSince92]

I'd love to have won it but soon after I could sense that in a lot of ways that team was more revered and immortalized (not just by UK fans) in defeat and the way they fought than they may have in victory.

This is a great point. That was our “Rocky.”

 

[gracetoyou]

All he could have done better is put a man on Grant Hill, making it harder for him to throw that inbound pass.

Andre

 

[HagginHall1999]

That is life and man is that crazy.

It is weird (not in a bad way) to look at stuff that way. Someone who was my age (44) in 1992 would have been born in 1948 and is now mid-70's. Life is short. As long ago as that shot was, it simply doesn't feel like it to me.

I want to add to my own post because this is crazy and just thought about it. I can definitively remember sitting by my Dad's stack of audio equipment in '93 season listening as we got hammered by Vandy and Christian McCaffrey's uncle right after we got to #1 for the first time in many many seasons. It was one of RP's worst losses once he'd gotten UK back to being UK.

The fact that was 30 years ago is mind boggling. For guys my age I think part of it (meaning how it is hard to believe how long ago it was) is the acceleration of technology in the mid to late 90's....early '00's. We really grew up in an amazing time. Nothing has really changed since then, it's just gotten faster.

There is no generation who can say they've seen the changes we've had in terms of innovation. Grew up in a time where you wrote phone numbers down and stuck them in your wallet and a couple years later were messaging from a cell phone. The internet...hell the changes from my Freshman year of college to Senior Year were astonishing. Wild stuff. It is sort of like a time warp and it happened so rapidly.

 

[white10]

I regret that Coach P. didn't have someone guarding the inbounder Grant Hill.

 

[FurdTerguson]

I'll agree Pitino overall coached a good game. I'll agree we all should move on. I'll agree he doesn't need to beat himself up.

But you can't make the case he did everything right -- because the contradiction is right in your post. If your biggest concern is letting Laettner beat you with two foul shots, to the point of emphasizing "don't foul!!" then there is even less reason to have two guys standing like statues afraid to foul him. Put one guy in front of him making the pass hard to receive but very unlikely to foul from in front of him, and one guy on the ball, making the pass hard to throw on a straight line.

Remember the Patrick Sparks game? The one thing he told his team was "don't foul," but they did foul Sparks and the rest is history.

 

[CUJO_1970]

Not sure if this has ever been mentioned before but maybe we should have guarded the inbounds pass.

 

[TeoJ]

32 years ago. Time to move on.

I'm still pissed about 66.

 

[NC Weasel]

Certainly one of the great X & O coaches of all time. But I think he made 2 mistakes there.

1) Not guarding Hill on the in-bound pass. He could have still double teamed Laettner and just allowed the ball to come in to whoever you think their worse ballhandler was.
2) NEVER send a player out with a negative thought as the last thing in their head. Both of our players body language indicated they remembered "don't foul" more than anything else they were told. This from a team that was aggressive all game/season. It was out of character.

Rare mistakes for Rick I think.

 

[FurdTerguson]

Certainly one of the great X & O coaches of all time. But I think he made 2 mistakes there.

1) Not guarding Hill on the in-bound pass. He could have still double teamed Laettner and just allowed the ball to come in to whoever you think their worse ballhandler was.
2) NEVER send a player out with a negative thought as the last thing in their head. Both of our players body language indicated they remembered "don't foul" more than anything else they were told. This from a team that was aggressive all game/season. It was out of character.

Rare mistakes for Rick I think.

In all fairness, two great players made the greatest clutch play in college basketball history. We could probably analyze every last second success story as a failure by the defense. Why didn't Michigan and Wisconsin double team Aaron Harrison? The best last second defense I ever saw was Willie Cauley Stein chasing Grant from Notre Dame down the court, never once thinking "ahhh, he'll miss it"