Historically, Duke can't match Kentucky's pedigree. But there has been a sense that Duke is chipping away at that.” They think Kentucky should always be at the top. They have unbelievable allegiance to the school. “They have some of the best fans anywhere.
“People in Kentucky feel that no program can rival them,” Taylor said. Kentucky's greatness stretches from the 1930s to the modern day with very few down periods. True, UCLA has won more titles, but almost all of those came during one 12-year span under John Wooden. Kentucky, building on the legacy of Adolph Rupp, has a strong claim as the most important program in college basketball. “They were worried that Duke was challenging their status in college basketball,” he suggested. They told me, 'Don't go warm up with the wrong team.'”īecause of his close ties to Kentucky, Bell understands that the intensity of the rivalry goes deeper than just one game, even if that was the flashpoint. “Before the championship game, my teammates were teasing me about it. I used to tell him that he ended both my high school and my college careers. Jack Givens played on the team that knocked my high school team out of the state playoffs. James Lee, the sixth man on that '78 Kentucky team, was a high school teammate. I used to come home every summer and I'd play with all the Kentucky guys. “I'm both a Kentucky fan and a Duke fan,” he said. Then Laettner's shot … “īell is talking about Christian Laettner's game-winning shot to beat Kentucky that day.“Now you have to watch that shot replayed a thousand times every year,” Bell said.īell, whose father Tommy Bell was a famous NFL referee and was also a member of the Kentucky Board of Trustrees, thinks he understands the Kentucky mindset – maybe because he's a Kentucky fan himself. They had turned the program around and brought Kentucky back. “You have to understand how the people of Kentucky felt about that team – they called them the Unforgettables.
Uk basketball roster 1966 series#
“There wasn't the hatred then,” Bell said, agreeing with Hardy that the series changed in 1992. “We'll be sitting on our hands,” he said.īell also played for the 1978 Duke team that lost to the Wildcats in St. 3 Kentucky will add a new chapter to the rivalry when they meet Tuesday night in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.īruce Bell, another Kentuckian – he grew up in Lexington, went to law school at the University of Kentucky, and is now a judge in Lexington – will be there, sitting in the Kentucky section with his future son-in-law (also a Duke grad), trying to hide his Duke allegiance. “It wasn't heated at all,” Rob Hardy, a Kentucky native who was a member of the Duke team that lost to Kentucky in the 1978 NCAA title game, said of the rivalry. They won't let it go.”īefore that '92 game, Duke and Kentucky were just another pair of basketball opponents. “It wasn't just the shot – when Laettner stepped on that guy's chest, it infuriated people,” Taylor said. Man, that guy was clutch.”īut he was also hated by the Kentucky nation. Then hit that shot – I was as shocked as anybody. “When that kid hit that shot, it seemed like it was meant to be.
“I was in Lexington, watching the game,” Vince Taylor, who shunned his hometown Wildcats to play for Duke in the late 1970s, said. It's a loss that still infuriates Wildcat fans.
28, 1992, when Duke edged Kentucky in a game that ESPN has voted as the greatest college basketball game ever played. Everything changed on the afternoon of Mar. Duke and Kentucky have a long history, one that dates back more than 80 years.īut the real rivalry between the two college basketball superpowers is barely two decades old. 549 winning percentage.īaseball Almanac is pleased to present a unique set of rosters not easilyįound on the Internet.DURHAM, N.C. They played their home games at Crosley Field (Park Factors: 107/106) where 1,047,824 fans witnessed their 1965 Reds finish the season with a. The 1965 Cincinnati Reds played 162 games during the regular season, won 89 games, lost 73 games, and finished in fourth position.
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