The Last Great Game by Gene Wojciechowski

The Last Great Game by Gene Wojciechowski

Author:Gene Wojciechowski [Wojciechowski, Gene]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101559703
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2012-01-05T00:00:00+00:00


EIGHT

October 15, 1991

Pitino was now on the coaching clock, which is how he preferred it. His program wasn’t completely out of NCAA prison (UK had one more year of probation to serve), but it no longer had to walk around wearing an orange road-gang jumpsuit.

The scholarship restrictions were gone. The asterisks were history. The Wildcats were now March Madness approved. For the first time since his arrival, Pitino could look at his roster and see more than slivers of hope. At last he saw expectations.

Every ingredient for success was in place. Kentucky had the makings of a college superstar in Mashburn. It had four seniors—Pelphrey, Farmer, Feldhaus, and Woods—who would start or get massive minutes. It had experience (a total of seven juniors and seniors and ten lettermen). It had motivation. And it had Pitino and his driven staff.

The program had some scores to settle. Even its preseason media guide had a certain “F— you” editorial quality to it. On page 15 of the guide was a UK team photo accompanied by a copy block with a message as subtle as Bruce Willis in Die Hard:

Wait just a minute here. Did you say Kentucky would be ranked SEC OND in your preseason basketball poll?

SECOND, as in one place lower than first?

Kentucky? A sleeper for the Final Four? A team of destiny?

How could this have happened so soon? Okay, okay, so last year was great fun. But only yesterday you said it would take YEARS to rebuild this program.

YEARS, as in more than one. Only yesterday, your friends from Sports Illustrated used the word “shame” in reference to Kentucky. But this… SECOND?

What will people think? What will they say?

Take that. Kentucky was suddenly Officer John McClane and SI was terrorist Hans Gruber. “Yippee-ki-yay” and all that.

Pitino’s original three-year rebuilding plan called for the Wildcats to challenge for the SEC championship and to play in the NCAA Tournament. But the plan was outdated. UK had already won its version of an SEC title, and it was good enough to do more than just play in the NCAA Tournament. Pitino knew it and so did Kentucky followers.

The UK roster that Pitino had carefully reshaped and assembled was an eclectic mix of personalities, accents, and playing styles. There were five Kentuckians, two players from New York, two from Mississippi, two from Florida, and one apiece from Indiana, Texas, Illinois, and Tennessee.

Martinez and Mashburn were inseparable. They had come to Ken-tucky together, roomed together, configured their class schedules together. Worked out together. Barfed together.

Mashburn was the Grant Hill of the Wildcats, a player whose refined skills, size, and physical abilities simply made him better than anyone else. And like Hill, Mashburn deferred to the upperclassmen and considered himself an overachiever. “I always had that mental concept in my head that I had never arrived,” Mashburn says.

At Kentucky, the talent difference between Mashburn and the rest of the UK roster was much more pronounced than between Grant Hill and the Duke lineup. Because of that, Mashburn wasn’t hesitant to try to take over games.



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