UK versus Number One

Tonight the University of Kentucky Wildcats will play the AP's number one team in the nation, Ohio State. This doesn't happen very often; UK has only played 18 games against the country's number one team. We are 5-13 in those games. As it turns out, I saw all five victories (and 11 of the losses). Here are my memories of some of the games between UK and the nation's top-ranked teams:

March 22, 1975: Kentucky 92, Indiana 90 (NCAA Mideast Regional Final) (Dayton, Ohio): This was the game that made e a UK fan and it is, to my mind, the most important game in UK's modern history. Kentucky was a heavy underdog against an Indiana team that hadn't lost all year (and wouldn't lose a game the next year). This game proved that Joe Hall could win the big one, that UK's best days were not in the past, and that UK could go head-to-head with Bobby Knight. It would make any short list as one of the greatest games of all time. I have very vivid memories of riding through Paducah with my dad on late Saturday afternoon after the game, and just being so, so happy to be alive.

December 26, 1981: N. Carolina 82, Kentucky 69 (E. Rutherford, N.J.): This was a made-for-TV match-up between the nation's one and two teams. Given that UK ended this season with a first-round NCAA loss to Middle Tennessee, I have no idea why were ranked number two at this point. What I remember very strongly was that I watched this game at my mother's parents' house in Tennessee (we were down there for Christmas), that UNC had a freshman named Michael Jordan (who I had never heard of, but who destroyed us), and that I quit watching well before the game ended because I was so disgusted. Just as the Indiana game was one of Joe Hall's greatest triumphs, this game is symbolic of Hall's struggles in the 1980s to keep up with IU, UNC, and Louisville.

November 19, 1988: Duke 80, Kentucky 55 (Springfield, Mass.): I don't think I even watched this game; I was busy in law school at the time. But I remember being surprised that UK had lost so badly. As it turned out, this was the beginning of the end for Eddie Sutton, and the end for the version of the Kentucky program that I had grown up with.

March 28, 1992: Duke 104, Kentucky 103 (OT) (NCAA East Regional Final) (Philadelphia, Pa.): By March 1992, UK and I were both at a very different place in our lives. I was no longer a student; I had an apartment, and a job, and a wife. UK was no longer the scandal-ridden embarrassment they had been under Sutton; they had a new young coach, new players, and a very exciting and modern style of play. Much like the 1975 win over Indiana, this game re-introduced UK to the nation -- and also spurred me to new heights of fandom. I would pretty much watch every game UK played for the rest of the decade. This game, of course, is now regarded as the greatest ever played. I would not dispute that analysis. In fact, I believe that with the possible exception of the 1975 win over Indiana, this is probably the best game I've ever seen UK play in the NCAA tournament. I think Duke's 1992 team may be the only team I've seen who could have beaten us on that night.

March 12, 1994: Kentucky 90, Arkansas 78 (SEC Tournament Semi-Final) (Memphis, Tenn.): This is the sort of game that reminds me of what it was like rooting for Pitino's teams. Arkansas was an awesome team -- they went onto win the national title that year. And they had already beaten UK at Rupp. But Pitino came up with a brilliant zone defense that threw them off their game, and the Cats pulled the huge upset. I can still remember jumping with joy all over the little house in Arlington where I saw almost all of Pitino's triumphs at UK.

March 30, 1996: Kentucky 81, Massachusetts 74 (NCAA Semi-Final) (E. Rutherford, N.J.): Nowadays, UK fans -- and everyone else who discusses it -- acts as thought UK's 1996 team was always certain to win the title, given that they were just so much better than everyone else. But UMass had only lost one game all year -- and had already beaten Kentucky. In fact, many experts thought that Coach Calipari's cerebral Minutemen could outsmart the "athletes" who played for UK. By this point, I was on my fourth year (going back to 1992) of obsessing over UK's chances to win the title, and I really believed that if they didn't win it in 1996, they might never win it again. (I had much the same view in 1978). I had been worried about playing UMass since November, and I don't think I have ever worried so much about a single sporting event in my whole life. I remember that the afternoon of the game, I took my wife and number 1 son (who was the only son back then) and drove all around Northern Virginia, taking pictures and doing anything to get my mind off of the game. And then I remember -- after UK had won not only this game, but the title I had wanted them to regain since I was 12 -- thinking that fandom would never be this good again, that as a 30-year-old with a wife and child and growing responsibilities at work, I could never again devote as much time to a game as I had been doing. And that was basically right.

February 4, 2003: Kentucky 70, Florida 55 (Lexington, Ky.): By the time this game was played, I felt much older and more wizened than I had in 1996. I couldn't obsess over the team as much as I used to; I was too busy. In fact, I only half-paid attention to much of this game, because I was working late in the office. And I had begun the long, slow doubting of Tubby Smith that would eventually turn me completely against him. I was becoming more of a Donovan guy, and I assumed UF would probably win this game. But as it turned out, Tubby had put together a really great team. This game -- in which UK absolutely slaughtered Florida -- was the beginning of a three-year run in which UK teams led by Chuck Hayes would win and win and win, only to disappoint in the tournament three years in a row. At the time, though, I thought it was a new dawn. I include it on this list because it is important to remember that while UK historians will certainly look upon the 2000's as a lost decade for the Wildcats, there were lots of triumphs and hope for those of us who lived through them, and there were lots of nights when we thought Tubby was one of the best coaches in America. This was one of those nights.