University of Tennessee Athletics
Tennessee and Kentucky Battled It Out 30 Years Ago
February 16, 2005 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 16, 2005
Tennessee fans woke up 30 years ago this morning feeling a little better and standing a little taller after viewing or reading about arguably the greatest game in Stokely Athletics Center history the previous night (Feb. 15). Those who were at the game were probably a bit tired, but somehow survived to tell the tale at church or the following Monday at the office.
Coming off three consecutive losses, Tennessee won 103-98 over Joe B. Hall's Kentucky team in a game that started at fever pitch and which never diminished in the least until the final horn. Hall was there with his rolled up program and blue coat, matching wits with Ray Mears. John Ward and Cawood Ledford were high above the floor calling the action. On the floor, there was as impressive array of talent on the floor as anyone could possibly imagine.
Amazingly, the game was not seen on television, except on the delayed WTVK telecast in Knoxville. It was all in the days before ESPN, before the Internet, before sports coverage became a 24-hour per day business. Even before Dick Vitale. These days, the game would have been right up there on ESPN Classic nearly instantaneously, seemingly at all hours. There were no media timeouts listed on the official play-by-play.
A capacity crowd of 12,718 was in full voice, watching as Tennessee trailed only once at 2-0, led 56-44 at the half and beat back repeated Kentucky rallies to eventually prevail by five. It was the first time the Vols had cracked the century mark against Kentucky.
Kentucky had come into the game No. 4 in the nation and would make it to the Final Four only to lose in John Wooden's last game as head coach at UCLA. The whole setup was reminiscent of 1966, when the Wildcats came to Knoxville No. 1, lost to the season finale to the Vols 69-62 and then lost to Texas Western in the finals.
The Vols shot 56.8 percent from the floor, Kentucky 54 percent. A look at the names from the box score will tell you the level of competition.
For Tennessee, Ernie Grunfeld, then a sophomore, had 29 points and five rebounds and canned four pressure-packed free throws down the stretch, 11 of 12 overall, to help the Vols hold the lead. Grunfeld was a load for anybody coming off the wing or the high post.
Bernard King, a freshman who averaged 26.4 points per game to lead the league, had 24 points and 20 rebounds. Mike Jackson, another soph, had 24 points. Doug Ashworth had 12 points and nine rebounds. Rodney Woods, a Kentuckian playing the point at Tennessee, had 14 points and 10 assists. Austin Clark played briefly, but no one else left the Vol bench.
Pondering the impact King had on the game as a Vol, Ward once said: "We don't editorialize much... but this young man... can play... this game."
That night, King played the final 7:03 with four fouls. He took 22 shots and never went to the line. When he got the ball on the blocks, it was on the glass in a flash. He was so quick inside that it boggled the mind.
There were heroes in blue and white, too. Senior Kevin Grevey had 24 points, with freshman Jack "Goose" Givens, the hero of the Wildcats' 1978 national championship run, adding 20 points and seven rebounds. Givens showed the denizens of Stokely a smooth jump shot that barely rippled the net and would end up making him one of Kentucky's finest over the years. Senior guards Jimmy Dan Conner and Mike Flynn had 10 each, with nine assists between them. Freshman Rick Robey muscled in 18 points. (Just for the record, Flynn's father, Jim, had lettered in hoops at Tennessee in 1950.)
The Vols jumped all over the Wildcats in the first half, knocking in shots from all across the expanse of Stokely Center at the north end, the end where Andy Holt sat, resplendent in his orange coat. It was 48-38 with 1:58 to go in the half and the two teams combined for 14 points in the final moments, with a Woods jumper at the three-second mark capping a wild first half of basketball.
Tennessee led by 10 early in the second stanza when Givens had 10 points in a three-minute span to close the margin to 74-70 and the chase was on. Jackson and King each had eight points down the stretch to hold off not only Givens, but Grevey, Robey and the others.
Grunfeld made two free throws for a 98-92 lead and the old arena exploded with each make. Grevey knocked home a 22-footer (a three-point goal today) to close the margin to 98-94. Ashworth made the first of a 1-1 for a 99-94 lead and Grevey closed the margin to 99-96 with a 15-footer.
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| Ernie Grunfeld |
Jackson and Grunfeld made the final free throws around a Givens jumper to establish the final margin.
Tennessee had lost 88-82 in Lexington earlier in the year and King was heard to remark he wouldn't lose to the Wildcats again. He didn't. Tennessee swept the Big Blue the next two years, the second year an SEC title year for the Vols.
It wasn't easy, but the Vols got it done, winning their final contest at Memorial Coliseum and their first at a new venue known as Rupp Arena, both games in overtime.
In 1978-79, Don DeVoe's first season, Tennessee took a trifecta from the Wildcats, winning at Rupp Arena, the second victory there in three years, at Stokely and in the SEC title game at the Jefferson County Civic Center in Birmingham.
Thirty years have not dimmed in the least the memories of golden era of Vol hoops, of Bernie and Ernie, Mike Jackson and Rodney Woods, Doug Ashworth and a coach named Mears. The passage of time is inexorable, but with the games played out over and over in the mind's eye, the moments are with us forever.
