Billy Gillispie has been fired! Huh?

That’s the word I’m hearing from some pretty solid sources.

Actually, I was hearing that Gillispie will not be fired.  If G leaves, it’s going to be more of a split due to irreconcilable differences.  A mutual decision to part ways.  I’m sure there will be a buy out involved.

UK is jumping into the abyss.

I’ve also been told the following:

The player mutiny is nonsense rumor mill tripe.  Certainly, there are a couple of players who dislike Gillispie.  Meeks and Patterson are NOT those couple of players.  Meeks and Patterson are not considering the jump to the League because of Coach G.  They support G and are declaring or not declaring based upon their draft status.  They will decide based upon real world criteria and not the fantasies of internet rumor mongers and the media.  The players who won’t be coming back are guys who shouldn’t be coming back.  The Carruth wannabees.  Think AJ and Deandre.  Team Cancers.  From what I’ve been told AJ doesn’t see the purpose or value of an education.  He hasn’t lived in his dorm for most of the season.  Krebs has been all by his lonesome.  Liggins is another problem child.  Think that Vegas trip was his only refusal to go in a game.  Think again.  He’s supposedly done it throughout SEC play as well.  Deandre is playing the game right now.  The only way that he’ll be back is if he continues his change of attitude.  If he doesn’t convince G [or the next coach], he’ll not be returning.  Supposedly, he’s been a real challenge this season and I have a hard time understanding why G has put up with it.  Don’t be surprised if both AJ and Deandre are sitting on some other bench next year.

Folks who are concerned about the contract and why BCG hasn’t signed it.  Some think it’s the clause that sets down the criteria for BCG to be fired.  Some think it has to do with charitable contributions and foundations that is the sticking point.  Others are saying that it has to do with a “personal life” clause.  I’m hearing that such is not the case.  Word on the wind is that it’s the same clause that kept Billy D away.  Apparently, Mitch wants final say on recruiting offers.  He wants final word or veto power concerning recruits.  BCG [and most other Coaches who are worth a damn] will not agree to this.  Coaches should have final say in recruiting.  As long as the guy meets NCAA guidelines, BCG and almost any other coach should have the final say in recruiting.  Not the AD.  This isn’t the NBA and the AD is not the General Manager.  Apparently, Mitch thinks that everyone is as inept a recruiter as TLT.  There seems to be more than this but that’s all I got.

Last thing, the media is brewing this storm because of their personal distaste for BCG.  My opinion on that is screw the media.  Not everyone needs to be at their beck and call and on bended knee.  The media does ask stupid questions that are a waste of time.  And the media picks it’s heros and it’s villains based upon who kisses up to them.  Sycophants like Coach K get all the good press.  Any coach who doesn’t kiss their collective asses gets bad press.  Wooden was a God.  Despite his teams being bought and paid for by a booster.  USC gets a free pass in Football.  UNLV and UK get burned because Rupp and the towel biter didn’t play their game.  Apparently, Matt Jones has a hard on for BCG because Matty was not treated with kid gloves by BCG at an early press conference.  If so, Matt has a pretty large ego.  He’s a freakin’ blogger.  He’s not a real media figure.  He’s lucky he gets a media pass.  That’s funny, though.  Matt Jones was the biggest Tubby Homer on the planet.  Almost as big a homer as the guy who runs A Sea of Blue.

On the recruiting front.  If BCG is fired, UK better hit a GRAND SLAM on the coaching hire or Daniel Orton is gone.  Larry Orton was being polite when he stated that Daniel Orton would reconsider his options if BCG was fired.  I’m told that there is no chance that Daniel comes to UK if BCG is not the coach.  ”Zero. Actually, less than zero.”  Is what I’m told.

There is also the tale being told that the UKAA canvassed the players.  Asking if they’d return if BCG was fired.  I guess they are weighing their options.  Fire Billy and these guys leave/stay.  Don’t fire Billy and these guys leave/stay.  Jockeying for leverage in contract negotiations?  Trying to gauge how hard the program will be hit with a BCG firing.  UKAA has to know that they will hurt the program by firing BCG this year.  Allowing the pressure to build, though, allows them to have maximum leverage in contract negotiations.  Playing hardball, I reckon.   Mitch not making a statement of support allows the pressure to build.  He apparently thinks this will aid him in the negotiations after the season and will allow them to get the concessions they desire.  Will Gillispie give that much control over recruiting to the AD.  I don’t think any coach would do that.  I think Billy G will allow some contract concessions such as making the hand shake circuit and being nicer to the media.  But ceding recruiting decisions to the AD, I don’t think it will happen.  BCG and any coach that UK will want will walk away from that deal.

The last thing that I’ve heard is that it’s all over.  The “that’s not in my job description” statement was the straw that broke Billy’s back.  Billy has supposedly been told that he will not be returning next season.  The players are said to know as well.  But they supposedly “demanded” that he be allowed to coach them through the NIT.  The word is that there is an anointed individual in the wings and he’s still in the Tournament now.  Calipari?  Pitino?  Wright?  Dixon?  I don’t know.

So that’s the latest that I’ve heard.  Could all of that be true?  If it is, this program is a mess.  Perhaps, it’s time to part ways with Mitch unless he has some magic up his sleeve that puts UK in the Final Four in 2010 or 2011.  This whole mess is inexcusable.  From the TLT departure catching him off guard to the Billy D fiasco to this mess with Billy G.  Does Barnhart have a clue?  I’m beginning to think that he does not.

Just things I’ve heard around the water cooler.  I’m no one to whom anyone should pay any heed.  After Kentucky plays the last game of the season, somethings going to happen.  I don’t even think G and Mitch knows for certain what that might be.  No one else knows for sure either.  That’s simply my opinion.

Great Moments in Kentucky Basketball

Adolph Rupp and Cawood Ledford discuss Rupp’s 42 years as Coach of the Kentucky Wildcats Basketball Program.

Great Moments in Kentucky Basketball pt 1

Great Moments in Kentucky Basketball pt 2

1958 “Fiddlin’ Five” National Championship Team

Great Moments in Kentucky Basketball pt 3

Great Moments in Kentucky Basketball pt 4

(For some reason, I am having trouble uploading part 3.  I’ll get it up as soon as possible.)

ESPN and CNNSIs hypocrisy in full view: Don Barksdale on the ‘48 Olympics and Adolph Rupp. John Wooden, Sam Gilbert and Tark the Shark.

Don Barksdale was a pioneering athlete in the mid-20th Century.  He was a member of the Gold Medal 48 Olympic Basketball Team and the Philips Oilers Championship Team.

In 1948, he was the first African American to play with the U.S. Olympic team. He

joined the team in Basketball at the 1948 Summer Olympics. He became the first Africa-American basketball player to win a gold medal in the Summer Olympics.

Barksdale, who had been playing with the Amateur Athletic

Union’s Oakland Bittners, was given an at-large berth from the independent

bracket, but not without heavy lobbying by Fred Maggiora, a member of the Olympic Basketball Committee and a politician in Oakland, which was adjacent to Barksdale’s hometown. About eight years later Maggiora told Barksdale that some committee members’ responses to the idea of having a black Olympian was “Hell no, that will never happen.” But Maggiora wouldn’t let the committee bypass Barksdale.^[2]

“This guy fought, fought, and fought,” Barksdale said, “and I think finally the coach of Phillips 66 [Omar Browning] had said, ‘That son of a bitch is the best basketball player in the country outside of Bob Kurland, so I don’t know how we can turn him down.’ So they picked me, but Maggiora said he went through holy hell for it – closed-door meetings and begging.”

The 1948 Olympic team had five Kentucky Wildcats basketball players who had just won the very first Wildcat national championship in the 1948 NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament. The rest of the Olympic team, consisting of the AAU Champions Phillips Oilers, and the Kentucky team later scrimmaged on Stoll Field in front of 14,000 spectators, the largest crowd to watch basketball in Kentucky at that time. Barksdale became the first African-American to play against Kentucky in Lexington. He could not stay at the hotel with the rest of the team, but instead stayed with a black host family.^[3]

Adolph Rupp, the legendary Kentucky coach, was the assistant coach on the 1948 team under Omar Browning.^[4]

“[Rupp] turned out to be my closest friend,” Barksdale said. “We went to London and won all 12 games and got the gold medal.” But he had to brush off indignities just about every step of the way. . . Later, coach Rupp told Barksdale, “Son, I wish things weren’t like that, but there’s nothing you or I can do about it.” Barksdale agreed. He lived by a very simple philosophy. He wasn’t interested in protest; he was interested in playing basketball. He had faced prejudice before, and he knew that he would face it again.

Does that sound like a racist.  Why does the American Sports Press get away with deriding Rupp as a racist when to a man his contemporaries both black and white say the exact opposite?  Look to Duke in 1966.  All White Team as well.  But somehow that fact is never mentioned in all of the talk of “walls tumbling down.”  When will these media types start to deal in fact.  Instead they lie and cheat and defame persons with innuendo, deception, lies and half truths.

There are hundreds of stories that attest to the lie that is perpetuated by ESPN and their crew of amatuers.  Yet, they refuse to back down from their slander.  All the while, they canonize a guy like John Wooden whose greatest booster openly paid his players.  Paid for their clothes, cars and abortions.  I’m not saying that Wooden doesn’t deserve his accolades.  He won and won big.  But his achievements are tainted with drug money.  Neither ESPN nor the NCAA will go near those stories.  Wooden lived in denial as Papa Sam paid for his rosters.  Either that or he was complicit in the violations.  Yet, Wooden will never be investigated.  What is the difference between Papa Sam and his relationship with Bill Walton and the Reggie Bush situation or the recent O.J. Mayo “scandal.”  There is no difference.  Except that Wooden was an untouchable.  Much like Coach K and his golden boosters giving away 6 figure salaries to receptionists and signing for homes for the parents of Duke Basketball recruits.  Chris Duhon and others spring readily to mind.

Speak to me of hypocrisy.  These supposed professionals cowardly destroy the reputation of one man after his death based on fallacies and lies.   All the while, they anoint another despite the hard truths behind his grand, yet tainted, achievements.

Monday, April 03, 2006

Adrian Wojnarowski: UCLA’s Tainted Dynasty

April 3, 2006
The Bergen County Record

INDIANAPOLIS — Everywhere Jerry Tarkanian goes at this Final Four, the blue and gold, the magical four letters, the thunderous U-C-L-A chants on the streets, bring Tark back to college basketball’s greatest dynasty, back to a name most synonymous with the championship seasons.

Only, it isn’t John Wooden.

Or Lew Alcindor.

Or Bill Walton.

“I think about Sam Gilbert,” Tark said Sunday afternoon.

And that’s the name that causes a roomful of frolicking Bruins boosters and fans to go uneasily quiet. Sam Gilbert, the two dirty little words of the dynasty.

For the record, Tark will go where others genuflecting at the altar of John Wooden will never journey. He’ll say the name that amid the hype for tonight’s UCLA-Florida national championship game, you’re guaranteed to never hear on CBS. The NCAA tournament loves its nostalgia, its mythology and you’ll be getting the full force of this farce from the RCA Dome.

“To people, John Wooden is a god,” Tark said.

It is a losing proposition to suggest that UCLA’s 10 national championships under Wooden were won with anything but the talent of great players and the lessons and leadership of a legendary coach. It just is never talked about — out in the open, anyway.

It was what it was, though: Sam Gilbert was a Los Angeles construction man who lavished the Wooden-era UCLA players with money, cars, gifts, the run of his mansion, whatever. Anything those players wanted, the dynasty’s sugar daddy was reputed to provide it.

“To this day, what blows me away — what still makes me angry — is that Sam Gilbert never tried to hide what he was doing,” Tark said. “But the NCAA was never going to investigate UCLA. They were the marquee team. They had all of the games on television. But I lived 20 minutes away in Long Beach and I knew what was going on there. The whole country, the NCAA, they all knew what Sam Gilbert was doing at UCLA.

“Hell, he bragged about it to a lot of people. He bragged about it to me. Once, he liked my point guard [Robert Smith] and said, ‘Why don’t you send him over to UCLA so I can take care of him?’ The NCAA was always harassing me, but Sam Gilbert was violating more rules than anyone in America.

“I was told that John Wooden used to always say that he wished Sam would stay away from the program. I was told that he went to [the AD] J.D. Morgan about it, and Morgan told him that he would take care of it. But it went on and on.”

These days, Tark is hardly on the UCLA warpath. Truth be told, he loves the Bruins’ coach, Ben Howland. As funny as it sounds, Tark will be sitting in Howland’s seats for the game tonight.
What’s more, Tark’s never had a personal problem with Wooden, who always was very nice and very generous with him through the years. His issue isn’t with Wooden, but a system that selectively punished cheaters.

This isn’t to absolve Tark by means of some great conspiracy to get him. He is a well-deserved and well-decorated NCAA probation loser at Long Beach, UNLV and Fresno State. I covered him for 2½ years in Fresno, had my drag-outs with him, but the years have taught me that some of the most respected names in the sport — some of the so-called giants — are the biggest crooks going. Tark always told me, and only in the last few years have I come to agree with him.

Ultimately, Tark thinks that if you want to believe that his four Final Fours and his 1990 national championship are tainted, then you have to take a look at UCLA, too. I always believed that his fight with the NCAA wasn’t so much about his own innocence, but the fact that there were competitors of his who had been deemed untouchable and never got popped too.

If you think this is just Tark barking at the moon, trying to justify his own misdeeds, consider a different source, someone whose agenda is beyond reproach. While working with Tark on his memoir “Running Rebel,” author Dan Wetzel dug up a Bill Walton quote from a 1978 book, “On the Road with the Portland Trail Blazers.”

If you ever want to debate that there is a double standard between the chosen programs and those branded as renegade by the NCAA, consider this stunning passage.

“UCLA players were so well taken care of — far beyond the ground rules of the NCAA — that even players from poor backgrounds never left UCLA prematurely (for pro basketball) during John Wooden’s championship years,” Walton said. “If the UCLA teams of the late 1960s and early 1970s were subjected to the kind of scrutiny Jerry Tarkanian and his players have been, UCLA would probably have to forfeit about eight national championships and be on probation for the next 100 years.

“… The NCAA is working night and day trying to get Jerry, but no one from the NCAA ever questioned me during my four years at UCLA.”

Here’s the thing, too: This doesn’t make Wooden less of a philosopher, less of a teacher, less of a great American icon. To me, it doesn’t change the fact that the afternoon I spent in his condo two years ago rates as one of the best days I’ve ever had in this business. It’s just a reminder there is no Camelot in sports. And there are no saints.

Wooden is 95 years old, bigger and more beloved than ever, and as Tark said one Hall of Fame coach told him this weekend, “People won’t really start talking about [Wooden's] legacy until he’s gone.”

Wooden is still the kind of man, just like those Bruins were the kind of champions, who never will be duplicated. The banners are still hanging in Pauley Pavilion, the 100 years of probation that Walton swears would’ve been warranted never did come. Admire the UCLA history tonight, but don’t let yourself get lost in the mythology. There was no Camelot in college basketball, no saint.

E-mail: wojnarowski@northjersey.com

Pat Riley — Hall of Famer

It’s official. Riley elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

Pat Riley, a member of the famous Rupp’s Runts, played in the 1966 National Championship game. Whiile in the NBA he played on one NBA Championship team (L.A. Lakers) and coached 5 NBA Championship teams (the 80s Showtime Lakers and the 2006 Miami Heat). The man was a coaching genius who could get multiple star caliber players to mesh into a cohesive team and win. No easy feat. Especially in todays game. He, also, took the ‘94 Knicks to the Championship game but came up short that year. No one has been able to do much with the Knicks since.Coach Riley joins his mentor and Coach–Adolph Rupp–in the Hall of Fame as well as NBA greats like Red Auerbach and other legendary NCAA coaches such as John Wooden.

Congrats Coach Riley on a great honor and an incredible and exemplary career.

This is an excellent article on Coach Riley by Rick Bozich of the Louisville Courier Journal.  (article here)

“I wish that coach (Adolph) Rupp, Harry Lancaster, Joe B. Hall, Mr. (Bill) Keightley and Louie (Dampier), Larry (Conley), Thad (Jaracz) and Tommy (Kron), God bless him, could be here to share this moment with me because the University of Kentucky was a special time in my life,” Riley said.

Indeed it was. Riley arrived at UK in 1963 from Schenectady, N.Y. He credited his basketball development to all 16 of his coaches, starting with his first coach — his father, Leon, a minor league baseball player.

At UK, Riley said he was assigned to share a room with Dampier, another freshman, from Southport, Ind. Riley had not begun to slick back his hair, but he said when he pulled out his blue-suede shoes and fancy clothes, the more conservative Dampier flinched.

Said Riley: “Louie had to be thinking, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me! I’ve got to live with this guy the next four years?’ “

Adolph Rupp — How To Star In Basketball

Adolph Rupp — Individual Offense Part III

done

“Control the boards, control the game.”  Not much changed there.

30 Minutes each practice on free throws.  I wonder if that happens these days.

This is the last piece to the Rupp Individual Offense film. When I get back to the states in June, I’ll see about posting the other three coaches videos on here as well. I’ve got a few more things that I’ll share in the future. Enjoy.

Below is a small manual produced by Quaker Oats. I made this video out of it with the UK Fight Song but then realized that it’s too small to read. I’ll post the booklet in a larger format when I have a little more time.

done

Adolph Rupp — Individual Offense Part II

done

Thanks to Vic and Rick, I can tell you with some certainty that the team featured on this film are the guys from the 56-58 Seasons. Obviously, that would include the ‘58 Championship team. The players that are probably featured in the practices and game excerpts are probably among the following:

Team Roster

#24 Johnny Cox
#10 Gerry Calvert
#52 Vernon Hatton
#32 John Crigler
#34 Ed Beck
#50 Adrian Smith
#55 Ray Mills
#70 John Brewer
#12 Billy Ray Cassady
#40 Earl Adkins
#20 Dick Howe
#10 Lincoln Collinsworth
#88 Bill Smith
#33 Harold Ross
#66 John Hardwick
#50 Jay Bayless
#14 Phil Johnson

Back in the good old days of WildcatFaithful.com, I had the pleasure of meeting Vernon Hatton once at an 2001 Lexington event arranged by the late gentleman Mel McCane. Mr. Hatton is a boisterous gentleman who loves to tell stories about his years with Coach Rupp. We, at the event, were reveled with stories of practices and Coach Rupp’s infamously acerbic wit which he leveled liberally at his athletes. Joe B. Hall as well as the incomparable Wallace “Wah Wah” Jones also attended that event and spoke to the attendees. It must have been special to have been a part of those teams and to be witness to and part of the history of Big Blue Basketball and the Rupp Era. I certainly felt privileged to be able to live vicariously for a brief moment through the voices of men who played, strained and excelled under the leadership and guidance of Adolph Rupp.

The history of the Big Blue is incredible.

Enjoy the part II.

As always, you are welcome to poke around and view the rest of the blog.

Thanks, Dave

Coach Adolph Rupp plugs Coca Cola

done

Nothing wrong with that. This little “commercial” is from a Basketball Reel to Reel that I was able to get off of ebay a few years back. I had it converted to digits and now that I have a way to share it (this blog), I’ll be posting it on the blog over the next week. It’s a three part film on Individual Offense. It’s part of a larger effort with three other coaches and Coach Rupp explaining different aspects of the game. Of course, the game has changes a bit since these coaches were in their prime. I can’t find any information on the film on the web and the actual reels are in my storage room back in Kentucky. But I’ll post as much back ground information as I can gather.

I always find it interesting to hear Coach Rupp talking. You can tell the man has a love for Basketball and for the University of Kentucky. He smiles a lot in this film and talks to his team. From what I’ve read, he didn’t do that often in practice. So these film productions may have been a welcome respite from what I’ve read were immensely difficult practices in the Rupp Era. This film gives a quickshot of Harry Lancaster–Rupp’s longtime assistant.

I hope y0u enjoy.

Kentucky’s Adolph Rupp “passed” on All Time Wins list by Northern State Coach Don Meyer

That’s the claim at any rate.

I laughed when I read the statement. Then I had to ask myself; “Who on earth is Don Meyers and who are the Northern State Wolves?”  Ranked #15 Nationally at what? Over the past few years, High School powerhouse Oak Hill has been ranked #1 nationally several times. Good for them. It’s just not the same as being the #1 or # 25 ranked NCAA Division 1 Team. Likewise with a JUCO Coach or a Division II Coach and All Time Wins. No comparison. Period. End of story. End of debate.

The Keloland TV Station website is claiming that Northern State Coach Don Meyer has surpassed Adolph Rupp on the All Time Wins list. Claiming that Coach Meyers is now Number 3 and Coach Rupp is now down to Number 4. I have to call them on this one. I think it’s bogus. There is no comparison. If you are going to include Division II schools on the same list as Division 1 schools, we may as well include JUCO and the lower Divisions as well. Why not lump in High School Coaches as well?

I’m sure that Don Meyer is a fine coach. I’m sure he has accomplished much down there in the little leagues. That said, it’s no comparison.

Adolph Rupp won four NCAA Championships. He won the NIT when it was the BIG GAME in town. He placed so many players on the All America lists that they named the NCAA National Player of the Year Award after him. Adolph Rupp coached 28 future NBA’rs. The 1948 USA Olympic Basketball Team consisted of 7 Kentucky players and the starters from the ‘48 Philips 66 Oilers Championship team. Coach Rupp was assistant Coach to Bud Browning of the Phillips 66 Oilers. Coach Rupp has a 23,000 seat capacity Arena with 7 National Championship banners flying inside.

A Division II coach is not on the same plane of existence as the Baron of the Bluegrass. No debate necessary. That’s why it hasn’t made the news on any real level. It’s not news. Keloland TV is erroneous in it’s statement that Don Meyers has passed anyone on the All Time Wins list. It’s a pipe dream and it’s up in smoke. A Coach at Division II should not be mentioned in the same breath as Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith and Bob Knight. You may as well include Dean Smith and Adolph Rupp on the list of All Time Winning NBA Coaches. You just can’t do it. 800 wins at Division II–while a great achievement at that level–does not compare to 800 wins at Division 1.

This is the House that Rupp built.

Postgame interview with Coach Adolph Rupp

Coach Rupp was interviewed by Claude Sullivan after the 1966 National Championship loss to the Texas Western Miners.

Claude Sullivan: OK, well it’s a tough one to give tonight because everybody in Kentucky and on this Standard Oil network, who was listening. I know that almost everyone of them was for these Kentucky Wildcats. And of course, it’s a heart-breaking thing because a journey that Adolph Rupp talked about earlier that began back in December, ended here on heartbreak highway tonight. For the Wildcats who now are sitting dejectedly across the floor. They came into this thing heavily favored, maybe that hurt them. The way these Washington papers played it up today as no contest, they thought Kentucky was going to walk away with it, maybe that hurt the Wildcats more than anything else.

Adolph Rupp: Seems, they made about 17 more free throws than we made, and I think that was the entire story of the game. We made, more, five more field goals than they made, that’s the fact of the case. But we didn’t play very good tonight. Texas Western made a lot of mistakes against our press, and I was sure we’d catch them. But I think it will show that the shooting average tonight did not take care of us at all. In the first half it was 33%, and I don’t believe it was much better than that in the second half.

And I’ve always told you on this program that shooting has taken care of us, but tonight it didn’t. And I don’t think we had a single boy that played up to par tonight.

Claude Sullivan: Coach Rupp I’m sure that a lot of people will be asking you, ‘How good is Texas Western’ ?

Adolph Rupp: Well, the way they handled the ball tonight, it’s a good ball club. I put them in the same class with Michigan, I put them in the same class with Tennessee, and Vanderbilt, teams like that. I think they’re a good ball club. They hit tonight, they hit very well tonight. They hit the clutch baskets when they needed it. We got them down there in the second half, I think we got them down to one point one time, two points another time, but we never could get the clutch basket. And it was our shooting that hurt us tonight. We missed shots. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the rebounding doesn’t show that we stayed on the boards with them pretty well, in spite of the fact that they’re much bigger than we were. But we just couldn’t shoot well.

Claude Sullivan: Coach Rupp did you feel that in the beginning of the game when after nine minutes you only had nine points, that it was bound to break for you with such a slow start.

Adolph Rupp: Yep, I told the boys at the half, I said we can’t play a miserable second half the way we played this first half. We gave them four baskets the first half that we shouldn’t have given to them. And, those two steals. I told the boys in the locker room, just before they came out at the beginning of the ball game, that they double team the boy bringing the ball up. But you can’t dribble the ball with your head down and not look around to see what’s going on, and that’s exactly what happened. Those were the two baskets, I believe, that hurt us early in the ball game. Then we gave another one by throwing the ball away, and they took it and threw it in and it got them a six point lead. And we never were able to get the momentum going after that. We started pressing a little bit then then and I think that’s the story.

Claude Sullivan: Well we’ll be back here at College Park talking with Coach Rupp in just one minute.

Claude Sullivan: Well the college basketball season is over, Coach Rupp, what are the plans now ?

Adolph Rupp: Well it’s been a long year, it’s been a good year, it’s been a better year than any of us ever dreamed it would be. Now then of course we’ve got to go out, we had a miserable recruiting year last year, one of the worst we’ve ever had. And we’ve got to go out and find us some boys, with size. This little button kid has gotten us an awful long way but, but it proves what I’ve been saying all year long, that when you get in there with those big guys who can dunk that thing, you’re going to be in trouble and that hurt us tonight, badly here. This team was very quick, they’re very fast, and although we did have five more field goals, they stepped up to that free throw line, they just got all the breaks in that way. So, I guess we just have to start a new string somewhere along the way and that’s just the way it’s going to be.

Claude Sullivan: Well, Coach Rupp, thank you very much for the visit, not only tonight but all season. We’ve certainly enjoyed being with you, it’s been wonderful. We’ve enjoyed it, and we’ll look forward to another year.

Adolph Rupp: Claude, thank you and thanks to the sponsors who have made this program possible, and I’ll come up and help you broadcast one of the Reds baseball games some day.

Claude Sullivan: Needed, he will be a knee high. Thank you coach and we’ll hold you to that promise.

Here at courtside at College Park Maryland, the Baron Rupp has bowed out for another college basketball season with a record of 27 and 2. Finished second in the NC double A’s, but for the first time in five tries, has lost the championship game.

________________________________________________

I always enjoy hearing or reading Coach Rupp talk about Basketball. I’ve recently purchased two of his books on coaching basketball. I purchased some original reel to reel footage of Rupp as well. Eventually, I plan on posting clips of Coach Rupp on here. Note in his comments the need then for the big man and the challenges of finding quality bigs. Gillispie is confronting that same challenge today. Another similarity to the present. Coach Rupp was a huge proponent of the Man to Man Defense. He felt that Zone Defenses should be used sparingly if at all. Gillispie is also similar to Rupp in that he is hot and heavy on discipline and conditioning.