By MAC YOCUM, Contributing Writer
Kentucky fans in the 1970’s began to develop what could be called an unhealthy fascination with basketball recruiting. As Joe B. Hall began to rival Dean Smith in his ability to bring in high school All-Americans, obsessed fans couldn’t wait for the few sports call-in shows to talk recruiting.
The callers all seemed to know someone who knew someone who knew some prospect and they were sure they were coming to Kentucky. Daryl Dawkins, Ralph Sampson, Steve Stipanovich, Wayman Tisdale and others were all supposed to be Cats according to the fans. When they didn’t, while disappointed, the majority of fans only voiced their displeasure when sitting around the barber shop or the daily coffee club at their favorite morning spot.
The recent fan implosion over Mark Pope not getting the recruits the fans want puts those 1970’s fans to shame. Social media has provided the faithful to voice their opinions in real time, all day, every day. How do you think social media would have treated Adolph Rupp back in the early 1960’s?
The 1962-63 season saw Rupp’s Cats go 16-9. They were led by All American Cotton Nash. Nash was a freshman in the 1959-60 season. It was the era of freshman ineligibility. Nash was dominating in practices against a varsity team that finished only 18-7. Rupp needed help for Nash and he was recruiting some of the best players in the country, including one in his own backyard. Jeff Mullins was starring just blocks from Memorial Coliseum at Lafayette High School. Rupp had gotten Vernon Hatton and Billy Ray Lickert from Lafayette so it was just assumed that Mullins would follow suit. He was named Mr. Basketball and Parade All American and he became the first Lexington star that Rupp wanted that he didn’t get.
Jeff Mullins went to Duke where he became ACC Player of the Year. He also shared a spot twice on
the All American team with Cotton Nash. I guess fans today would say Coach Rupp WHIFFED.
Rupp wasn’t done. He actually signed Ohio All American Gary Bradds. Oh what might have been. Gary Bradds only spent 2 days on the UK campus before he transferred back home to Ohio State where he became a 3-time All American and was National Player of the Year. I guest Coach Rupp WHIFFED again.
So back to the 1962-63 team. Using today’s fan approach Rupp couldn’t recruit. He could have a 1962-63 team with All Americans Cotton Nash, Jeff Mullins and Gary Bradds if he could have just sealed the deal recruiting. Oh, and another 1st team All American was Tom Thacker from Cincinnati who played at Covington Grant.
While we are at it, let’s look at the next season too. The 1963-64 team was a little better, going 21-6, still not the usual UK standards though. Nash was still there.and Rupp had added Parade All American Larry Conley in the spring of 1962. But again oh what might have been. The 1962 Mr. Basketball was St. X star Mike Silliman. The 1st team Parade All American was down to UK and Army. Silliman actually chose Army over UK. He said going to Army provided a better future. The nerve. Rupp apparently WHIFFED again.
So 1963-64 could have been Nash, Mullins, Bradds, Conley and Silliman. Actually two other first team all-SEC players were also Kentuckians. Robert Craddock from Hardyville starred at Georgia Tech and Dick Maile from Covington Catholic was putting up big numbers at LSU. Maile was challenging Nash as the SEC’s top scorer.
How could Rupp miss on so many stars? He lost players to what fans today would call inferior programs. He missed them because despite what fans think, not every recruit thinks that UK is the best place for them to play. And oh how the times have changed. When Mullins selected DUKE it only warranted a brief mention in the Lexington Herald-Leader, not stories day after day analyzing and reanalyzing what happened.
When Gary Bradds left campus, the newspaper reported it with a one sentence story. There were no headlines. There were no special editions. Why? Because back then fans were just that, FANS, and they let coaches do what they do, COACH.
Oh what might have been had Rupp been able to close on recruits.
4 Responses
Here is the difference Larry. Not everyone could play for Rupp as he was very demanding. He did miss some players or maybe they felt the heat was too hot in Rupp's kitchen, but he almost always had a top 10 team if not a top 5 team. He did not let the misses affect the caliber of play he put on the floor. Pope does not command that level of respect from his players. Last season, they told him how it was going to be and Pope caved into them and hence suffered another double digit loss season. Pope talks the talk but fails to walk the walk. NIL and the transfer portal have changed the game but the better coaches have adapted and continue to put good teams on the floor. Who knows what this roster will finally look like, but it doesn't seem to matter…Pope cannot get them to play as a team. A coach can't be everyone's buddy, he has to be the Boss! You have to have a capable floor general, a colonel, a major, a lieutenant, and a sergeant…they get 80% of the minutes period. You have another sergeant, a corporal, and a couple of privates who play specific roles. They may not be happy with their minutes, but they do their job just the same as they put the team first. That was the first assignment that Pope needed to master and failed to do so. Now, that reputation proceeds him, hence all of the misses. I see another double digit loss season coming our way barring a miracle in filling the last spots on this team. Not everyone can be a blueblood coach; some would make better doctors.
Nice article, brought back many distinct memories and provided some new information I had not known before.
For me, the problem with this program is not Mark Pope or his recruiting. It is a structural problem that has been building up for the last 30 years. It has been slow, incremental, almost unnoticeable to fans year to year. The progression accelerated during the Calipari experiement with social justice over program goals, and Pope has inherited a mess that he never realized could possibly exist with the UK basketball program that he really left behind on his personal journey in the 1990s before this change even began.
This has little to do with NIL or the Portal. For UK, it is different. Other programs have figured out how to thrive in the new world of college sports. UK not so much, but that inability to adapt and thrive is not due to the NIL and Portal obstacles but the structural rot that Barnhart left within this once-greatest program of all time.
I don't post often anymore because frankly, after Smith, Stoops, Calipari, and Barnhart, my time as a rabid, hanging on every word that a coach or insider says about anything type of fan are OVER after 6 decades of UK fandom that extend back to my earliest memories of Cotton Nash in the early 1960s.
Professor, it's good to hear from you again. I am excited to see what Stein can do with the football team and resigned to the fact that we have one more year with Pope coaching the basketball team. Barnhart has often been the problem more than the solution, but his time will soon be over. My "sell by" date is rapidly approaching, but I hope I can hang on long enough to see a top 20 Kentucky football team and a top 10 Kentucky basketball team one more time.
I have no comment on this because I was born in 1983. Sounds about right from what I'm reading.