Tonight’s Sweet 16 game in Indianapolis features a head-to-head match between
the last two NCAA champions: Louisville
(31-5), which won last season, vs. in-state rival Kentucky (26-10), the 2012
title holder.
Louisville advanced last Saturday after defeating Saint Louis. A day
later, Kentucky knocked off Wichita State, which had won all 35 of its games and
had hoped to become the first undefeated college basketball champion since Indiana
in 1976. In all, there have been just three other schools (San Francisco, 1956;
North Carolina, 1957; and UCLA, 1964, ’67, ’72, and ’73) to go through the
season and tournament without a single loss.
Kentucky’s total of seven national championships is second only to UCLA’s
11. (Louisville has two). Sixty years ago, Kentucky went 25-0 but did not win
an NCAA title. Here is the background—and my story from
Street & Smith’s 100 Greatest College Basketball Players—on that season for
the Wildcats and their leader, Cliff Hagan.
High in the firmament of Kentucky basketball stars is Cliff Hagan, one
of just three Wildcats in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. (The
others are Frank Ramsey and Dan Issel.) Hagan was inducted in 1978 after a
stellar amateur and professional career.
Born Dec. 9, 1931, in Owensboro, Ky., Hagan was a three-time all-state
player at Owensboro Senior High, which he led to a state title in 1949 after
scoring a then-record 41 points in the championship game.
“Cliff had probably the greatest hook shot that the good Lord ever saw,”
said Ralph Beard, who preceded Hagan at the university. “He was only 6-4 ½ at
most, but he’d take the big dudes in and his extension of his arms would prevent
any of them from blocking his shots. He could lay it on the floor and he could
score on anybody. Obviously he carried that into college.”
Happily for UK fans and coach Adolph Rupp, the college Hagan carried his
game into was Kentucky. He led the Wildcats to 86 victories in 91 games, which
included a 32-2 mark in his 1951 sophomore year, an eighth straight
Southeastern Conference crown for UK, and the school’s third NCAA championship
in four years (68-58 over Kansas State).
A year later, Hagan earned the first of his two consensus All-America
honors. The Wildcats went 29-3 but were denied the opportunity to defend their
title when they lost in the regional final.
In 1953 the NCAA imposed the death penalty on the school, banning it
from competition for recruiting violations. Kentucky returned to the court the
following season in a memorable game that saw Hagan score 51 points in a
blowout win over Temple. He averaged 24 points and 13.5 rebounds, and again was
named a consensus All-America, leading the Wildcats to a 25-0 record. Kentucky
elected not to participate in the NCAA tournament after the NCAA ruled that
Hagan and teammates Ramsey and Lou Tsioropoulos, as graduate students, were
ineligible.
In 1974, Hagan was named to the Southeastern Conference all-time team
and enshrined in the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame. In 2002, in recognition of
100 years of Kentucky basketball, the Lexington
Herald-Journal polled a panel of writers, broadcasters, and former
university coaches and personnel to determine the top players in school
history. Only Issel and Beard received more votes than Hagan.
