All Kentucky losses in the NCAA tournament hurt especially bad but you are right the 1966 loss to Texas Western was brutal. It was the most painful UK loss for me until the 2015 loss to Wisconsin.
UK v Seattle 1958 NCAA Championship Game (How the game has changed!)
- Thread starter Kampus Korner
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All Kentucky losses in the NCAA tournament hurt especially bad but you are right the 1966 loss to Texas Western was brutal. It was the most painful UK loss for me until the 2015 loss to Wisconsin.
Thanks for this. I never heard of this guy until I saw this clip. Great stuff!Teams were shooting around 40% in those days. Given our poor shooting this year, I became interested in how it compared to earlier years. I went to Jon Scott's site and dumped the yearly stats into an excel spreadsheet:
UK's trend line reflects the national average of most schools. Shooting improved steadily from the early days to the late 1960s. It leveled off and peaked in the 70s and early 80s. After that, the 3 point shot was introduced in 1986, and the overall percentage went down slightly.
It's interesting how the technique of shooting has changed and improved over the years. In the early days the two-handed, flat-footed, set shot from the chest was used. Some players began experimenting by shooting over their head to avoid defenders. Then they began jumping up. Some famous coaches (Hank Iba) were opposed to the emerging jump shot. They believed accurate shooting required both feet on the ground and also thought shooting up over defenders detracted from the strategy of the game.
Have you ever looked at the list of NCAA champions and seen Wyoming as 1943 champion? Wyoming? There is a reason for that. They had a 5' 10" guard named Kenny Sailors who was the first player to perfect the one-handed jump shot.
Sailors passed away a few years ago, but a documentary was made about him before he died. It's a GREAT story for any fan of basketball history! Highly recommended! His one handed jump shot was as pure and perfect as anyone's today.
Teams were shooting around 40% in those days. Given our poor shooting this year, I became interested in how it compared to earlier years. I went to Jon Scott's site and dumped the yearly stats into an excel spreadsheet:
UK's trend line reflects the national average of most schools. Shooting improved steadily from the early days to the late 1960s. It leveled off and peaked in the 70s and early 80s. After that, the 3 point shot was introduced in 1986, and the overall percentage went down slightly.
It's interesting how the technique of shooting has changed and improved over the years. In the early days the two-handed, flat-footed, set shot from the chest was used. Some players began experimenting by shooting over their head to avoid defenders. Then they began jumping up. Some famous coaches (Hank Iba) were opposed to the emerging jump shot. They believed accurate shooting required both feet on the ground and also thought shooting up over defenders detracted from the strategy of the game.
Have you ever looked at the list of NCAA champions and seen Wyoming as 1943 champion? Wyoming? There is a reason for that. They had a 5' 10" guard named Kenny Sailors who was the first player to perfect the one-handed jump shot.
Sailors passed away a few years ago, but a documentary was made about him before he died. It's a GREAT story for any fan of basketball history! Highly recommended! His one handed jump shot was as pure and perfect as anyone's today.
Here is another expanded PBS story on Sailors
The dude who knocked on Rupp's hotel room door was the coach at Idaho at the time. Or maybe it was Idaho State.
Rupp always said he'd take the guy's name to his grave, and he did.
But Harry Lancaster made no such promise, so he spilled the beans in his book, ADOLPH RUPP AS I KNEW HIM (as told to Cawood Ledford).
So the story goes, Rupp and Harry had done this guy a favor in the past, and he felt he owed Rupp and Harry a favor in return.
So he showed the two coaches how to beat Seattle. Apparently, this coach was in the same conference as Seattle at the time, so he was very familiar with Elgin Baylor.
Rupp and Harry woke the team, got them all into a room, and showed them the above-mentioned 16mm film.
I can't remember just what is was that Rupp and Harry did for this coach that made him feel indebted to the two Kentucky coaches.
I seemed to have misplaced my copy of Harry's book. Maybe JP Scott remembers exactly how the story goes.....
I attended the game. The turning point was when Baylor picked up his fourth foul and Seattle was forced to go into a zone defense. Everything moved into Kentucky’s favor at that point. It was interesting to hear the crowds reaction when Seattle came out in a zone defense. An older fan sitting next to me turned it was a wife and said Kentucky wins they can’t beat us with a zone defense.
Thanks for sharing this much appreciated.
If Calipari had studied the film on Kaminsky before the Wisconsin game in 2015, he could have had that kind of scouting intel, and WCS would have shut Kaminsky down. But before the Wisconsin game, Calipari said, "We don't watch film. We just try to play the best game we can play ourselves."
As you point out, Coach Rupp understood the value of the information and was willing to try something different. That's the sign of a great coach.
Coach Rupp won. Calipari lost.
Wilt was the most dominate player that ever lived, no one else has ever came close. Wilt however was not one of the media darlings. If he were you would still be hearing about some of the things that he could do on the court.
I would say shaq was the closest, however they were 35 years apart.
In 1958 he had to have looked like he was dropped from outer space to some of those guys. He looked like usane bolt running the floor at 7'3" .
Baylor's first year of college ball was at the College of Idaho, then he transferred to Seattle. I think the coach felt betrayed.
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