But There’ll Be Dickens to Pay if the New No. 1 Wildcats, Winners of 23 in a Row, Aren’t Champs

Teapot Dome was chicken feed compared to the scandal that paralyzed the region here recently when a couple of city-slicker designers dared to tinker with the Kentucky basketball uniforms.

Or did they? When CBS analyst Billy Packer suggested on national television that the denim-colored duds unveiled against Arkansas appeared closer in hue to North Carolina’s powder blue, well, circuits blew from Shelbyville to Boonesboro.

“Uniform shade ignites powder keg,” screamed the front-page headline in the Feb. 13 Lexington Herald-Leader, overpowering the national news of the day--Sen. Bob Dole’s victory in the Iowa caucuses.

The paper, in fact, might have underplayed Denimgate.

Kentucky Coach Rick Pitino strapped himself to the hot seat and took on incoming fire during his weekly radio call-in talk show.

This was a sensitive issue for Pitino, who helped design the uniforms.

“We took a towel of Carolina blue and put it next to it, and our color is so much darker than Carolina powder blue it’s not even close,” Pitino said.

Not good enough.

The calls kept coming.

“But coach . . . “

Pitino interrupted, shouting, “I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense! It shows you having nothing to do with your time.”

Yeah, so?

From October to March, what else is there here but Kentucky basketball?

The Wildcats have not won a national championship since 1978, have won only two of their five titles since 1958. Yet that is never an excuse for not winning it this year.

“Expectations are outrageous,” said Caywood Ledford, Wildcat broadcaster for 39 years until his retirement in 1993.

Never higher than this season, perhaps, if only because the suddenly top-ranked Wildcats are generally conceded to have the most talented team in the country. Pitino’s roster includes half a dozen former prep All-Americans, six possible NBA prospects--everything but a partridge in a pear tree.

His lineup runs 11 deep.

Late at night, Pitino feels the stares of the owls blinking at him from the backwoods. Kentucky remains a rural state, full of coal miners’ daughters and Cumberland Gap disparities between rich and poor. There are no professional teams.

The bond is Kentucky basketball.

“The rich just get better seats,” Ledford says.

T-shirts in the book store spell it out: “Kentucky Basketball Is Life.”

Once, the story goes, an airline pilot peering down over Kentucky from 30,000 feet couldn’t figure out why so many lights were burning at 2 a.m.

He was told Kentucky had a game on the West Coast and, well sir, it was pretty much law that no one went to sleep until Ledford signed off.

Sitting at his desk, Pitino considered this mission impossible.

“If someone steps in Tyus Edney’s way last year, UCLA doesn’t get there,” Pitino says of the precarious nature of national title runs.

Does Pitino get letters?

Strange but true: A fan once sent Pitino a copy of his baby’s sonogram, assuring the coach this was Kentucky’s starting point guard in 2010.

“We got a follow-up on the kid when he was 2 years old,” Pitino said.

Strange but true: Pitino routinely gets pictures of dearly departed fans in caskets, awaiting burial in Kentucky Wildcat outfits.

“Oh, they want you to know,” he said. “It’s to the extreme here like you wouldn’t believe.”

Cameron Mills, a native Kentuckian, turned down a full scholarship to Georgia to become a walk-on for Pitino.

“When you grow up a Kentucky boy, your goal in life is be a Kentucky Wildcat basketball player,” Mills said.

In college basketball history, only North Carolina has more victories than Kentucky’s 1,640.

The joke is, Kentucky fans will only crack a slight smile if the team advances to the Final Four.

Everything up to that point is considered the exhibition season.

Pitino, the native New Yorker who came south to rescue the program from NCAA probation--assistant coach Dwayne Casey, the $1,000 Emory package, Chris Mills, remember?--is handling it as best he can.

“In ’78 here, they felt the pressure,” said Pitino, in his seventh season in Lexington. “They said it was a team that was relieved when it won the championship. They talk about how they never smiled. That will never happen with us. We believe in entertainment, having fun. If we’re lucky enough to do it, we’ll be happy. If not, we’ll go on to next year.”

Maybe, maybe not.

Kentucky may never have a better chance to cut down the nets. In a year lacking dominating teams, the Wildcats top the list as most likely to succeed.

Since an early-season loss to Massachusetts, when Pitino still was tinkering with his lineup, the Wildcats have won 23 consecutive games, the longest streak at Kentucky since Coach Adolph Rupp and “Rupp’s Runts” won that many to start the 1965-66 season. While previously unbeaten UMass was being knocked off by George Washington on Saturday, Kentucky was pounding Florida, and thus the Wildcats have replaced the Minutemen at the top of the polls.

At 14-0 in the Southeastern Conference, Kentucky (24-1) is two victories shy of completing the first perfect SEC season since Alabama in 1955-56.

The Wildcats have scored more than 100 points five times this season and earlier this month defeated Tennessee by 40 points--at Tennessee.

“Kick a little tush, get back on the bus.”

Robert Goulet has it right about Kentucky in those ESPN commercials.

The Wildcats have pummeled opponents by an average of 25 points, and their perimeter defense is to die for.

“There’s no defense like that in college basketball,” Arkansas Coach Nolan Richardson said after losing by 15 at Rupp Arena. “It’s a fun team to watch play. It’s a game of runs on you. You look up, you’re 15 down.”

Ledford, who began broadcasting Wildcat games in 1953, says this may be the deepest Kentucky team he has seen.

“I’ve got to wait till all the ballots come in to call it,” he said. “I’m extremely reluctant to call it the best team ever.”

Kentuckians have long memories.

Last season, a Kentucky team deemed championship worthy was bounced out of the tournament in the Southeast Regional final by those powder-blues from North Carolina.

The Wildcats were exposed for what they were--a three-point shooting team that could be taken if they had an off-night shooting.

The knock remains the same. Against Arkansas, Kentucky made only five of 23 three-point shots and struggled against an inferior team.

Struggle here means “only” a 15-point victory.

“If North Carolina didn’t teach us a lesson, nothing ever will,” center Mark Pope said of last year’s NCAA loss. “We have to be good enough in other areas to compensate. But we’ll find out coming up. You didn’t tell us something we didn’t already know.”

Pitino scoffs at comparisons to last season’s team.

“I thought it was one of the weakest teams here at Kentucky,” he said.

The concerns:

--Kentucky is vulnerable to a dominating opposing center. Case in point: the Wildcats’ lone loss was inflicted by UMass and star center Marcus Camby.

--The Wildcats don’t have a true point guard. Senior Tony Delk started the season there but was moved after the UMass loss.

--Pencil-legs forward Walter McCarty, 6-feet-10 and 230 pounds, is still too frail to be a force in the middle.

But this is nit-picking.

What Kentucky has is Indy 500 team speed and a second unit that might rank in the AP’s top-25 if it broke out on its own.

The waiting list for playing time is so long that Ron Mercer, the nation’s top incoming freshman, grovels for it.

This may be Pitino’s finest coaching job, if only because he persuaded a cavalcade of touring all-stars to put their egos aside for the sake of the team.

“I said, ‘Look, I’ve got a great dilemma. I’ve got 11 players who can play,’ ” Pitino said. “ ‘This will never happen at Kentucky again. That doesn’t make us the best team that Kentucky’s had. We’re going to have to sacrifice for the good of the program.’

“I said, ‘If you do that, we may be lucky enough to be part of basketball history. If you don’t, then we’ll just be another selfish team that people talk about.’ I said, ‘Everyone expects you guys to need five basketballs, to be selfish, to complain and you can be the opposite of what everybody thinks.’

“And they’ve done that. I’m very proud of them.”

Selflessness? The Wildcats have nine players who average five points or more, but no one who averages more than 20.

Delk is the team’s “star,” but the unassuming senior hardly acts the part.

“We have a number of guys who made sacrifices,” Delk said. “I’m one of them. In order to win, I’m not concerned with who gets the most minutes.”

Rivals swear Pitino hypnotized the team before the season after uttering these commands: “Think pass before shot. Think of others before self.”

So, this is it for Kentucky. Boom or bust.

Better not lose or else.

Or else what?

Well, that’s the problem in Kentucky. There is no else.

Devastating as not winning the NCAA title would be, Ledford knows that Kentucky fans are limited in their options.

“They’ll be mad a day or two, be real hurt, but no, they’ll be back,” Ledford said.

Back to scour next year’s recruits, to pore over scouting reports, to argue about uniforms.

“Just something to fuel fire down at the drugstore,” Ledford said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Dominant Dandies

Kentucky, with its 23.2-point margin of victory average (92.0 scored, 68.8 allowed), would rank 14th on the NCAA Division I all-time list. A look at the NCAA’s top 27 in margin of victory average, how those teams did in tournament play, and the player(s) that led them to their dominant season.

*

Rank: 1.

Team: UCLA

Season: 1971-72

Off.: 94.6

Def.: 64.3

Mrg.: 30.3

W-L: 30-0

Tournament: National Champion

Prominent Players: Bill Walton, Keith Wilkes

*

Rank: 2

Team: North Carolina State

Season: 1947-48

Off.: 75.3

Def.: 47.2

Mrg.: 28.1

W-L: 29-3

Tournament: Lost in NIT first round

Prominent Players: Sammy Ranzino, Dick Dickey

*

Rank: 3

Team: Kentucky

Season: 1953-54

Off.: 87.5

Def.: 60.3

Mrg.: 27.2

W-L: 25-0

Tournament: Declined NCAA berth

Prominent Players: Cliff Hagan, Frank Ramsey

*

Rank: 4

Team: Kentucky

Season: 1951-52

Off.: 82.3

Def.: 55.4

Mrg.: 26.9

W-L: 29-3

Tournament: Lost in regional final

Prominent Players: Cliff Hagan, Frank Ramsey

*

Rank: 5

Team: Nevada Las Vegas

Season: 1990-91

Off.: 97.7

Def.: 71.0

Mrg.: 26.7

W-L: 34-1

Tournament: Lost in Final Four

Prominent Players: Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon

*

Rank: 6

Team: UCLA

Season: 1967-68

Off.: 93.4

Def.: 67.2

Mrg.: 26.2

W-L: 29-1

Tournament: National champion

Prominent Players: Lew Alcindor, Lucius Allen

*

Rank: 7

Team: UCLA

Season: 1966-67

Off.: 89.6

Def.: 63.7

Mrg.: 25.9

W-L: 30-0

Tournament: National champion

Prominent Players: Lew Alcindor, Lucius Allen

*

Rank: 8

Team: Houston

Season: 1967-68

Off.: 97.8

Def.: 72.5

Mrg.: 25.3

W-L: 31-2

Tournament: Lost in Final Four

Prominent Players: Elvin Hayes, Don Chaney

*

Rank: 9

Team: Kentucky

Season: 1947-48

Off.: 69.0

Def.: 44.4

Mrg.: 24.6

W-L: 34-2

Tournament: National champion

Prominent Players: Alex Groza, Ralph Beard

*

Rank: 10

Team: Kentucky

Season: 1948-49

Off.: 68.2

Def.: 43.9

Mrg.: 24.3

W-L: 32-2

Tournament: National champion

Prominent Players: Alex Groza, Ralph Beard

*

Rank: 11

Team: Bowling Green

Season: 1947-48

Off.: 70.5

Def.: 46.7

Mrg.: 23.8

W-L: 27-6

Tournament: Lost in NIT first round

Prominent Players: Charlie Share

*

Rank: 12t

Team: Loyola (Ill.)

Season: 1962-63

Off.: 91.8

Def.: 68.1

Mrg.: 23.7

W-L: 29-2

Tournament: National champion

Prominent Players: Jerry Harkness, John Egan

*

Rank: 12t

Team: UNC Charlotte

Season: 1974-75

Off.: 88.9

Def.: 65.2

Mrg.: 23.7

W-L: 23-3

Tournament: Did not play in NCAA

Prominent Players: Cedric Maxwell

*

Rank: 14t

Team: Arizona State

Season: 1961-62

Off.: 90.1

Def.: 67.6

Mrg.: 22.5

W-L: 23-4

Tournament: Lost in first round

Prominent Players: Joe Caldwell

*

Rank: 14t

Team: St. Bonaventure

Season: 1969-70

Off.: 88.4

Def.: 65.9

Mrg.: 22.5

W-L: 25-3

Tournament: Lost in Final Four

Prominent Players: Bob Lanier

*

Rank: 16

Team: Kentucky

Season: 1950-51

Off.: 74.7

Def.: 52.5

Mrg.: 22.2

W-L: 32-2

Tournament: NCAA champion

Prominent Players: Bill Spivey, Frank Ramsey

*

Rank: 17

Team: Indiana

Season: 1974-75

Off.: 88.0

Def.: 65.9

Mrg.: 22.1

W-L: 31-1

Tournament: Lost in regional final

Prominent Players: Scott May, Kent Benson

*

Rank: 18

Team: Cincinnati

Season: 1959-60

Off.: 86.7

Def.: 64.7

Mrg.: 22.0

W-L: 28-2

Tournament: Lost in Final Four

Prominent Players: Oscar Robertson

*

Rank: 19

Team: Oklahoma

Season: 1987-88

Off.: 102.9

Def.: 81.0

Mrg.: 21.9

W-L: 35-4

Tournament: Lost in championship game

Prominent Players: Stacey King, Mookie Blaylock

*

Rank: 20t

Team: Jacksonville

Season: 1969-70

Off.: 100.3

Def.: 78.5

Mrg.: 21.8

W-L: 26-2

Tournament: Lost in championship game

Prominent Players: Artis Gilmore, Rex Morgan

*

Rank: 20t

Team: North Carolina State

Season: 1972-73

Off.: 92.9

Def.: 71.1

Mrg.: 21.8

W-L: 27-0

Tournament: Ineligible

Prominent Players: David Thompson, Tommy Burleson

*

Rank: 22

Team: Nevada Las Vegas

Season: 1975-76

Off.: 110.5

Def.: 89.0

Mrg.: 21.5

W-L: 29-2

Tournament: Lost in second round

Prominent Players: Ricky Sobers, Glen Gondrezick

*

Rank: 23

Team: UCLA

Season: 1972-73

Off.: 81.3

Def.: 60.1

Mrg.: 21.2

W-L: 30-0

Tournament: NCAA champion

Prominent Players: Bill Walton, Keith Wilkes

*

Rank: 24t

Team: UCLA

Season: 1968-69

Off.: 84.7

Def.: 63.8

Mrg.: 20.9

W-L: 29-1

Tournament: NCAA champion

Prominent Players: Lew Alcindor, John Vallely

*

Rank: 24t

Team: Jacksonville

Season: 1970-71

Off.: 99.9

Def.: 79.0

Mrg.: 20.9

W-L: 22-4

Tournament: Lost in first round

Prominent Players: Artis Gilmore, Harold Fox

*

Rank: 24t

Team: Arizona

Season: 1987-88

Off.: 85.1

Def.: 64.2

Mrg.: 20.9

W-L: 35-3

Tournament: Lost in Final Four

Prominent Players: Sean Elliott, Steve Kerr

*

Rank: 24t

Team: Oklahoma

Season: 1989-90

Off.: 101.3

Def.: 80.4

Mrg.: 20.9

W-L: 27-5

Tournament: Lost in second round

Prominent Players: Skeeter Henry, William Davis