Published in NCAA as part of a three-part series on coaching greats (the other two were Henry Iba and John Wooden). This piece was reprinted in the Cats Pause Sports Publication in 1976.

by Adolph Rupp [As told To Russell Rice, Kentucky Sports Information Director]

When I started out in basketball at the University of Kentucky, I was hired also as an assistant football coach and many of the boys I had in basketball were also on the football team. While I was out on the football field, I turned basketball over to Pisgah Combs, who had graduated the year before, and he took whoever we had out there and worked with them and then I would come in afterward. I scheduled the practices so that I'd have a chance to see them.

About the 20th of November; I would go out with basketball; about December 1, the football players would report. That meant that we did not have much time to practice, since our first game was December 18.

Basketball has become such a big thing that they now push the games up into November. Of course, it was a big thing THEN at Kentucky, where we dominated the situation early.

Even with the old Alumni Gym, which seated less than 3,000, we produced the "Fabulous Five," which I would say right to this day was possibly the greatest basketball team of all time. Of course, we didn't have the techniques that the boys have today... like jump shots and all those things. But we did have a sound ball club and we won the Olympics (in 1948).

The NCAA tournament didn't amount to a great deal then (in fact, we turned down four of them before we finally accepted the invitation in 1942). After winning the NCAA and the Olympic Trials collegiate bracket, we played the Phillips Oilers, champs of the AAU. We had an eight-point lead when Cliff Barker received a broken nose and couldn't play any more. They beat us 53-49. Ralph Beard had a tremendous game.

We came back the next year and won the NCAA championship again.

Then they refused to allow us to go to the tournament the next year. They sent North Carolina State instead and they came in third.

The following year they decided to send Kentucky again. We won that year (1951) with a bunch of sophomores --(Frank) Ramsey, (Lou) Tsioropoulos, (Cliff) Hagan and all that crowd.

We then tailed off until the 1958, when the "Fiddlin' Five" won the thing. We had no business whatsoever winning it. They beat Seattle with Elgin Baylor and a great team behind him. I've always thought that for a bunch of boys to come along and win on sheer determination, that was the crown of all time. Everyone said it was the worst team ever to win the NCAA. That may be true. It just possibly was less talented than most, but no team ever won it with more determination.

We built Memorial Coliseum to seat about 12,000 and everybody said I was crazy to build a building that big, but we packed them in that first night and from then on. We dedicated it with Purdue before a capacity crowd and defeated them easily. From then on, basketball continued to grow at Kentucky.

Finally, basketball got so big at Kentucky that the other Southeastern Conference schools decided that football coaches and assistant football coaches no longer would be the answer if they wanted to be competitive.

They also realized that basketball could make money, but they would need larger places. Then Tennessee got a bigger place than we had. So did Vanderbilt, Alabama, Auburn and Georgia. The Mississippis also have fine places. Florida is the only "weak sister" as far as a fine building is concerned and they've been getting ready to build a new one for 20 years now.

Basketball at one time was a coaching thing. I remember reading a book, "The End of the Greats." Fortunately, it named me, along with Hank Iba, Joe Lapchick, Clair Bee and Nat Holman. I would say that in those days it was a coaching job absolutely. Today basketball is a recruiting proposition, something you can easily surmise by reading all the sports pages about the great athletes in high school and the schools that have been there to recruit them. The schools that have been successful are the ones that have taken the outstanding boys and concentrated on those.

There is no use taking a guy anymore who just isn't capable of playing. It's a recruiting thing. It's vicious, far more vicious than it ever was when I was coaching. Of course, I was not in on the recruiting except on a rare occasion. But if one-tenth of what I hear today is true, the NCAA has a problem on the recruiting in all sports. It's even getting down to baseball and track and other things. The NCAA better put on a hundred more investigators and even then I don't think they'll find out what's going on.

I would say that coaching has changed a little since Hank, Johnny and I quit and that's mainly in the case of different defenses, although defenses haven't been much different than when I quit. We put in the 1-3-1. I think everyone will give us credit for that. It was a wonderful thing for us as a jump attempt at a team that was giving us trouble. We've had tremendous success with it and still are. I think the 1-3-1 is one of the best defenses, although I've often thought at night that the 2-3 might be a great defense to have in reserve. In fact, we used it the last two years I coached and had great success with it.

In the 1-3-1, you've got to have mobility to get anywhere. In any defense, mobility is the answer . . . aggressive mobility. We numbered our boys clockwise; one in front, two on the wing, three in the hole, four on the other wing and five on the free throw line. The two and the four are exactly the same.

With our 'Rupp's Runts' of 1966, we had great mobility. Out front guy was Tom Kron, a 6-4" guard who could knock those passes down, go all the way and score. On the right we had Larry Conley, where your strongest man ought to be. In the hole we had Thad Jaracz. Louie Dampier was the other wing and Pat Riley in the center. Those boys absolutely personified the acme of perfection as far as the 1-3-1 defense is concerned.

From the offensive standpoint, I still believe that the greatest offense that has every been perfected is the pivot-post that we employed at UK all the time I was there. The offense was made perfect by the Original Celtics. I studied that play with them many nights, talking and talking into the wee hours. I discovered that if you don't have a good pivotman, you're not going to get anywhere with it.

At one time we had a fine pivotman in Cliff Hagan, who was only 6-4 and not the big bruiser who would go back to the basket and knock it in. But he had great hands and he could deal the basketball just as well as a guy in Las Vagas can deal those cards.

He could go back to the basket if there was no alternative. He would go back particularly to his left and use a hook shot that no one could guard. He was probably the finest pivotman that we have had at the University of Kentucky. We had other fine ones like Bob Burrow, Dan Issel and Alex Groza. Issel was next to Hagan as possibly the finest we've had in recent years. I can't compare Groza with them because Groza employed a different style of play.

If I were going to coach today, I would use the pivot-post offense. It has so many possibilities. We had 10 basic plays that we worked on and worked on... not only hours, but hundreds of thousands of hours in order to perfect them. We also had the stack offense that proved very effective for us then and now, but so many schools don't realize its effectiveness. These schools have a stack, but it's a two-man stack. We had a four-man stack.

The stack was my idea completely. The stack is really a double screen. The man who passes goes in and sets a screen. The pivot man goes to the opposite side, then both of the others come in and screen for them while they go out. Then if they don't get a shot, maybe the inside man can get a screen because if they don't they reach back and screen for each other and try to get the same formation going.

I like to see the professional game, primarily for the execution that they have, but as far as strategy is concerned, it is not there. The college game is still the greatest game in basketball. I like to see good college games.

I like to see the boys out there if they're talented. You have about eight or ten or maybe twelve universities that have the talent. They go after each other and use the principles laid down by their coaches. I think it is the finest basketball that is played in America today.

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