In “Adolph Rupp Kentucky’s Basketball Baron” written by Russell Rise, which is a biography on Adolph Rupp, the back section is listed with “Rupp’s player composite’s”. Which lists the best players Rupp coached in his long tenure at different skills. His best shooter was Louie Dampier, his best defender was Kenny Rollins, Cliff Barker was his best passer. But there is one that stands out from the rest,
Togetherness: 1965-1966 team.
𝐑𝐮𝐩𝐩’𝐬 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐑𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐬.
It’s hard, no impossible to talk about the early greats of college basketball without talking about Adolph Rupp. He coached at Kentucky from 1931-1972 and changed the sport to more resemble the game we know today. The Baron was one of the key supporters of establishing an NCAA tournament as well as the expansion of it once it was created. What was once a small eight team tournament has turned into a 68 team tournament with hundreds of millions of dollars in TV revenue. Along with his impact off the court, Rupp had a heap of success on the hardwood.
- 7th all-time in wins (876)
- second all-time in winning % (.822)
- 7x SEC COY
- 28 regular season SEC championships
- 13 SEC tournament championships
- 20 NCAA tournaments
- 6 Final Fours
-4 NCAA tournament championships - 1x Helms Foundation Championship.
There have been very few coaches that were ever as dominant as Rupp was in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. From 1949-1959, the first ten years of the AP poll, Kentucky reached the top three in every single season. Unfortunately by the 1960s, Kentucky started to decline.
A monumental reason for Rupp’s success was the ability to recruit and maximize the talents of Kentucky and Ohio players; he essentially had a monopoly on high schoolers within the state. The Baron believed that if he offered a boy a scholarship to play basketball at Kentucky he would be a fool not to accept it. When a Kentucky baby was born his mother should want him to become one of two things. Abraham Lincoln or a Wildcat basketball player.
The mindset worked for decades, but by the 1960s competition for recruits was more intense, and as were recruiting techniques. Now coaches needed to convince players (often illegally) they should play for them instead of the other way around. Rupp’s pride prevented him from doing that. After winning the championship in 1958 Kentucky had trouble finding “big players”, they could pick up plenty of guards but were regularly undersized.
This problem became crystal clear when Rupp tried to recruit Jerry Lucas out of Ohio, one of the best high school prospects the country had ever seen. 150 recruiters from around the nation reached out to him, 40 offered his parents a new home. One university offered a new car, a job for his father, and a surplus of spending money along with a house for him after he got married. Lucas gave Rupp twenty seconds of his time. The two met in the cafeteria in the presence of his football coach. Rupp offered him an application for a scholarship, Lucas promptly laughed and walked away. The Baron was getting left in the dust on the recruiting trail.
In the 1964 NCAA tournament, Kentucky entered the tournament as a two seed in the Mideast region, earning them a first round bye. After an impressive season where the Wildcats won the SEC led by Cotton Nash Kentucky was a trendy pick to reach the final four. Instead, they got obliterated by Ohio University in their first game. Jim Snyder’s stars Mike Hayley and Jerry Jackson dominated both sides of the game as Nash was held to just ten points on four of fourteen shooting. Rupp’s squad would fall in the third-place game as well losing to Loyola Chicago.
Kentucky started the 1965 season 4-4, the worst start in Rupp’s tenure. The lack of a proper big man was killing the team. Notre Dame outrebounded them 81-44 in a 111-97 defeat. After striking out on multiple top big men fans began to complain that Rupp didn’t work hard enough to get players. Midway through the season Rupp pulled a Roy Williams and said this was his worst team ever. The final record bore his assumption correct, an ugly 15-10. The lone bright spot was the emergence of Louie Dampier who averaged 17 points a game on a school-record 51.2 FG%
After suffering a disastrous season the year prior, 1966 was supposed to be even worse. Only Thad Jacarz was new to the team. On paper it looked doubtful they would reach .500, on the hardwood they went 27-2.
“From a physical point of view, they were all screwed up,” remembered Frank Deford, the editor of The National, then the college basketball writer for Sports Illustrated. “They had guards playing forwards and forwards playing center. Nobody was in the right place.”
The Wildcats played a positionless brand of basketball. The tallest starter was Tom Kron at just 6’5, naturally, he played the guard position. Pat Riley was just 6’3 and played forward but jumped center. He lost just 12 of 58 jump balls. Playmaking forward Larry Conley was 6’3 and was described as a, “reincarnated bag of bones”.
The smaller Wildcats could hold their own on the boards and could shoot the hell out of the ball along with having stellar passing. It might not have been Rupp’s most talented team of all-time but it sure was his favorite.
Each player knew their role on the team, even the bench guys who rarely played (Rupp regularly played a five to seven-man rotation).
Kron and Conley were the playmakers, the heart and soul of the team. They made Dampier and Riley All-Americans. Kron was a strong tough point guard who was fast and aggressive on defense. Conley was a superb passer and also excelled at rebounding for a smaller forward. The two ran the fast break seamlessly, all you had to do was fill in the lane and those two would get the ball to you.
Dampier and Riley shouldered a large amount of the scoring burden. Dampier was a marksman who could knock down tough shots and was ahead of his time with his range. Louie’s specialty was a jump shot over a center screen at the top of the key. Coming off a stellar freshman season Dampier improved to All-American play in 1966. Riley was the most athletic of the bunch and strong and extremely strong as well. An All-Star in both football and basketball Riley had a solid freshman season in ‘65, and much like Dampier took a major leap in 1966 averaging 22 points a contest.
Rupp had Kron, Conley, Dampier, and Riley penciled into the starting five but he still needed someone to man the middle. Enter Thad Jarcaz, a 6’5 240-pound center who was surprisingly light on his feet. Jarcaz’s father played football for the Wildcats in the 40s. Thad was a pleasant surprise for Rupp who figured he might need to spend a year on the bench and develop. His agility made up for his lack of height and he was akin to a freight train on the fast break. On top of that, he had a deadly looping hook shot which ultimately led him to earn the starting spot over the 6’8 Cliff Berger.
Jacraz was crucial at the beginning of the season, with 22/13 in a 26 point win over Virginia and a 32 point effort against Illinois as the Wildcats thumped the Fighting Illini by 18 points. Rupp’s squad continued their hot streak into games against Big Ten powerhouse Indiana, Rupp’s Runts won 91-56.
The Wildcats were now 6-0 and the pollsters were starting to notice. A team that was unranked in the preseason and first three weeks of the season, an oddity for a Rupp team, and sprung up all the way to ten. But the real test to see if they were legit was coming up and the end of their non-conference schedule.
The Baron’s team traveled to Lubbock to face off against Texas Tech, with Dampier out with an injury they were struggling and trailing. Rupp inserted seldom-used Bob Tallent, Tallent had 13 points as Kentucky rallied to a 16 point win. This is the game that convinced many of the players they could go all the way and claim a championship.
They trounced Notre Dame in front of 17,000 at Freedom Hall, then wrapped up an undefeated non-conference slate with a ten-point win over Saint Louis. The Wildcats had sprung up to number two in the nation. After a double overtime scare against Georgia, Kentucky beat third ranked Vanderbilt 96-83, two weeks later they beat the Commodores by 15 on the road, enough to earn them the number one overall rank in the AP poll.
The Wildcats kept rolling en route to a 22-0 record ahead of two matchups with Tennessee, Rupp’s biggest rival in the SEC. Opposing coach Ray Mears wore a brown suit to the game, something that didn’t escape the notice of Rupp who relished the 14 point victory that ensued. Kentucky had now won 23 in a row, unfortunately, they could not expand it to 24 as they would fall to Tennessee the next game. Still, they dismembered Tulane in their season finale and were heading into the NCAA tournament 24-1 and as the number one overall seed it looked like a championship was imminent, but the Runts still had a lot of work to do.
They kicked off the tournament in Iowa City with a matchup against Dayton. Henry Fickel proved tough to deal with as he provided 36 points for the Flyers, but a 1-3-1 defense to slow him down in the second half, as well as a 1-3-1 offense, helped secure a seven-point victory. Jaracaz set screens at the top of the key for the always moving Dampier who poured in 34 points. Two nights later they vanquished Michigan 84-77 behind 29 points from Riley. The Baron was heading to his first final four since 1958.
The Wildcats were matched up against Duke in the final four, who had been their rival for the number one spot all season. The Blue Devils, led by Jeff Mullins, Bob Verga, and Mike Lewis had a stacked squad the game was shaping up to be the de-facto national championship game. 23 points from Dampier was enough for Kentucky to outlast Duke 83-79. The Runts were 40 minutes away from a national championship.
The Rupps were set to face Texas Western in the championship game, who despite being ranked 3rd in the nation were criminally underrated by the general public for three reasons. The first being strength of schedule. Like Kentucky, the Miners won their first 23 games before falling to Seattle in their final game, but Texas Western had zero wins over top ten teams. Secondly, they had just scraped by their opponents. The Miners’ first two tourney games combined for three overtimes. They beat Cincinnati 78-76 in overtime and edged past Kansas 81-80 in double overtime.
Along with the on-court issues, there was a negative and racist off court perception about Texas. The Miners started five black players and were described as, “a collection of street fighters from the city sidewalks”. The Wildcats were massive favorites.
Before the game, the flu hit Conley and Riley. Annoying, but not a big deal, Kentucky and played sick all year and won. What really turned the tide was a genius coaching decision by Miners coach Don Haskins. Instead of trying to play big against the Runts, falling right into Rupp’s hands, he decided to go small, benching the 6’8 Neville Shed for the ‘5’8 Willie Worsley. The three-guard lineup allowed Western to control the pace.
The turning point came half way through the first with the Miners up 1. Bobby Joe Hill stole the ball from Dampier for a layup, then did the same thing to Kron. The Wildcats never recovered. They managed to keep it close but could never break loose. Western led by one with 12 minutes to play, Kentucky missed three chances to take the lead, not surprising for a team that shot just 37% from the field that game. The Miners won 72-65.
The team that played without fear all year was finally intimidated. Pat Riley describes the game as one of the worst experiences in his life.
Rupp would take the memory of the game to his grave. Even on his deathbed, he would wake up wondering what he could have done to win. It was his last great team, while Dan Issel would come in and lead some solid teams they were never as good as the Runts. The Baron would never again make the final four and would retire in 1972. Five years later he would die of spinal cancer.
“I can still see big daddy dunking”, “There’s a safe deposit box in my mind with the memories of that game the Ultimate Fanestired in it,” Riley said “When you get that far, whether it’s the seventh game of the NBA championship or the NCAA finals, nothing else suffices but winning”.
Kron remembers returning to Lexington to find the gym packed with fans, estimates vary as to how much but Kron remembers one thing. They wouldn’t leave.
Today the championship game has been immortalized, especially in “Glory Road”. Texas Western’s five white players rode the bench. Star David Lattin was only on the team because Houston wouldn’t allow him on their team, two years later they had Elvin Hayes. More and more southern schools began to integrate their athletics. It was a turning point. Haskins received thousands of pieces of hate mail. Both from racist whites and even some blacks who accused him of exploitation.
Frank Deford, an editor for “The National” at the time does not remember it being as big of a deal as it was later made. The Loyola Chicago team that won in 1963 was virtually all-black, a monumental occasion that often gets overlooked. The Ramblers had been the team to really set the world on notice.
Rupp’s Runts started the season unranked, after the worst season in Adolph’s career they weren’t expected to do much. Instead, they kept on winning until they were ranked number one in the nation. The odd group of players captured the hearts of Kentucky fans and despite the loss in the championship game have gone down in history as one of the most interesting teams of all-time.
On The Hardwood 