New York Times - March 24, 1947

Fast horses, strong whiskey and fine tobacco are not the only products of superlative quality found in Old Kaintuck. There also is the University of Kentucky basketball team which probably is the best in the land. Anyone seeking corroboration need turn no further than Col. Adolph Rupp, a transplanted hillbilly from Kansas, who can extol the virtues of the Blue Grass country with even more vehemence than Col. Matt Winn, one of the survivors of Daniel Boone's first expedition into the territory.

But where Col. Winn will stress the fast horse and his beloved Kentucky Derby, Col. Rupp will expound at length - and just try to stop him ! - on his Wildcat dribble artists. He's got a good talking point too. His "pore lil' country boys" are the very best - unless some team can prove differently.

It will be up to Utah tonight to attempt to prove it as the Utes square off against the lads from Lexington in the final of the National Invitation Tournament in Madison Square Garden. However, the Rocky Mountain contingent has made a habit of proving such unprovable propositions.

Eliminated in the first round of this same tournament three years ago, Utah was named as a last-minute substitute for Arkansas in the National Collegiate title show. Thereupon the Utes scored a couple of upset to win the Western final, scored another upset to win the unofficial national championship. So far in this tournament, they've surprised by upending both Duquesne and West Virginia, heavy favorites. If the clock hasn't yet struck midnight, the Fairy Godmother again may wave here magic wand for this Cinderella team.

Surplus Talent

However, it will take a feat of magic to beat Old Kaintuck. The droll and delightful Col. Rupp, suh, is more heavily loaded than a moonshiner's shotgun. He has All-America players picking up splinters on his bench and one such operative quit the squad in disgust because he couldn't even make the second team. The Colonel can always use one foolproof system. He can keep substituting until he finds which performers are "hot." Then he yanks the luke-warm boys and leaves the super-heated ones in there.

In that respect he almost reminds you of the Joe McCarthy of old. And, like Marse Joe, he has the admirable trait of being extremely adroit in his shuffling of his talent. Fred Russell tells the tale of the excitable Rupp being detected coaching from the bench. A technical foul therefore was called against Kentucky.

"By crimminey," exploded the never-shy Col. Rupp, "my coaching is worth a technical foul any time." Doggone, but he's really got something there.

The truth of the matter is that the Colonel never would win a popularity contest among his fellow coaches, especially in Dixie where he's been such a dominating figure for so long. He's well liked personally but professionally he has the same approximate appeal as a man with the bubonic plague. Most coaches can - and do - avoid scheduling him but the chaps in his own Southeastern Conference are stuck. They have to play against him.

So they cheer violently for every team in the league except Kentucky, hoping against hope that the Wildcats will be beaten in some miraculous fashion so that the rest of the them will have some sort of chance. A story filtered down to Florida a week or so ago - maybe true, maybe apocryphal but surely illustrative.

Embarrassing Moment

Gen. Bob Neyland, the Tennessee football coach and ordinarily not a demonstrative man, was rooting hard for the Volunteers during the Southeastern Conference tournament. His fervor so amused the lady in back of him that she couldn't resist the remark: "My, but you certainly are for Tennessee, aren't you ?"

"Madam," said the gallant General, "I'm for everyone but Kentucky."

For a while the General couldn't understand the frosty silence which enveloped his section of the stands. It was almost as though an icy blast from the Arctic had struck him in the back of the neck. Then a neighbor whispered in his ear that the query had come from none other than Mrs. Adolph Rupp.

Yet you can better understand the feeling that the Wildcats engendered in the hearts of all non-Kentuckians during that tournament when you look at the scores. Col. Rupp's "pore lil' country boys" edged out Vanderbilt in the first round, 98-29; barely beat Auburn in the semi-final, 84-14, and virtually had the blind staggers in nosing out Georgia Tech in the final, 75-53.

It's a team so good that you wonder how any quintet managed to beat it at all this season. Two of them did, though, the Oklahoma Aggies and DePaul - out of thirty-six who tried. That would indicate that Kentucky is human and that the job can be done. In neither of its preliminary games here did the Wildcats look overpowering except in the final quarter of its semi-final engagement. Then Col. Rupp's boys hit their stride and won going away.

Somehow or other, however, you can't escape comparing Old Kaintucky to the old-time Yankees. Although the emphasis always was placed on the scoring abilities of each, it was the overlooked but truly extraordinary defensive play which weighted the scales so heavily in their favor. Col. Rupp has in the person of Col. Ralph Beard one of the finest all-around stars in this generation. He also has super-players in Col. Wah-Wah Jones, Col. Alex Groza and a dozen other Kentucky colonels of incomparable skill.

Utah still can win, of course, but only if the Fairy Godmother still has a powerful lot of magic hidden away in her wand.