http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldl...ckages/uk_a_century_of_basketball/4725890.htm
1985-1989 || Sutton?s Downward Spiral
SHINING START, DARK END
By John Clay
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER
What was birthed in confusion, and began with promise, ended with the stain of Kentucky shame. Eddie Sutton, we hardly knew you.
Joe B. Hall?s successor lasted but four tumultuous seasons, compiling an 88-39 record, with an SEC championship and a trip to the Elite Eight of the 1986 NCAA Tournament.
Yet it is how the former Arkansas maestro came to Kentucky, and how he departed, that are best remembered. Or forgotten. At times, it seems Big Blue Nation goes out of its way to have Sutton?s time stricken from the record.
Start with the start. Hall had just announced his surprise retirement, hanging it up during his post-game radio show after UK?s 86-70 loss to St. John?s in a West Region semifinal of the 1985 NCAA Tournament.
The Final Four was held at Rupp Arena but a week later. Lexington was abuzz over possible replacements. Lute Olson? Gene Bartow? Al McGuire? Who could it be?
Then the day after Villanova pulled off its miraculous win over Georgetown in the NCAA finals, UK pulled another shocker, hiring Sutton, who few knew had even been interviewed.
Not that Sutton, who declined comment for this story, was an unworthy candidate. He had practically built the Arkansas program, growing Razorbacks hoops in a football school and state. His claim to fame were the wondrous Triplets, led by Sidney Moncrief, who led Arkansas to the 1978 Final Four where it lost to ? you guessed it ? Kentucky.
"When you look at it, Coach Sutton was a very logical hire," says Doug Barnes, a former Sutton assistant at UK who lives in Lexington and is in private business. "He had been very successful at a state institution that was the No. 1 school in that state. He had built that program from rock bottom. It was a natural progression for him to come to Kentucky."
Why Sutton even once, famously, said, "I would crawl on my hands and knees to get the Kentucky job."
The Sutton era began splendidly. A scoring stud in the middle, Kenny Walker turned in a national player of the year-type season, averaging 20 points per game. Ed Davender, James Blackmon and Roger Harden adapted well to Sutton?s three-guard offense.
Kentucky went a stunning 17-1 in the SEC and won the conference tournament at Rupp.
"You have to remember that we had to get past a lot of controversies and allegations starting that year," says Walker, alluding to a Pulitzer Prize-winning Herald-Leader series on behind-the-scenes payoffs to UK players. "That gave us some motivation. We had an us-against-the-world mentality and I think it made us closer as a team.
"I think Coach Sutton did a wonderful job of coaching that year. It was amazing what we accomplished with so many people playing out of position."
A lone piece of bad, or cruel, NCAA Tournament luck kept the Cats out of the Final Four. To reach Dallas, Sutton?s team had to beat both Alabama and LSU, teams it had already bettered three times each during the regular season. Couldn?t be done. After a 68-63 win over Alabama in the Southeast Region semifinals in Atlanta, the Cats lost to Dale Brown and the Tigers 59-57.
"That was really a fluke," says Barnes. "If we had played them 10 times, they would have only won once. But that happened to be the time."
To add salt to the fresh wound, down in Houston, Louisville was beating Auburn in the West Region finals to make the Final Four, and eventually, win the grand enchilada for a second time.
The same Louisville team Kentucky had beaten during the regular season.
"In my opinion, that first team was as good as there ever was at Kentucky," says Ralph Hacker, the longtime UK radio color man and, later, play-by-play broadcaster, who became a close friend of Sutton?s.
"It was a fluke having to play LSU four times that year, and I believe the psych job was won by Coach Dale Brown, for Kentucky did have the superior team. If successful in the game against LSU in the NCAA Southeast Regional, there is no doubt in my mind Kentucky would have won the national championship."
Nine months later, on Dec. 27, 1986, at Freedom Hall, the Sutton era peaked with a stunning 85-51 victory over the defending national champions.
It was also the christening of one Rex Chapman, the boy king from Owensboro who spearheaded the rout.
It was all downhill after that.
The ?86-87 season produced but an 18-11 record. Two first-round losses soured the post-season. Auburn decked UK in the first round of the SEC. Ohio State did likewise in the first round of the NCAA, 91-77.
Kentucky went 25-5 the next year, including a conference-best 13-5 mark in the SEC, and won the conference tourney title with a 62-57 win over Georgia in the championship game. But high NCAA hopes were dashed in Birmingham, when the Cats were upset by Rollie Massimino and Villanova, 80-74, in the Southeast semifinals. Ultimately, the NCAA ordered UK to erase from the record that loss and two previous NCAA Tournament victories that year, against Southern and Maryland.
Then the package popped open.
The infamous Emery package, the one that allegedly contained money headed for UK signee Chris Mills, the focal point of a two-year recruiting binge that had brought Sutton the hyped haul of LeRon Ellis, Eric Manuel and Johnny Pittman, to complement Chapman.
Chafing at Sutton?s coaching ? remember the seven-pass rule? ? and possibly sensing what was to come, Chapman bailed, placing himself in the NBA Draft after just two seasons. The expansion Charlotte Hornets made him their very first pick.
Back in Lexington, a scandal was shaking. Manuel?s ACT score came under scrutiny, an irregularity that led to charges of academic fraud. Assistant coach Dwane Casey was alleged to have sent the money Mills? way, though to this day Casey denies placing any cash in that envelope. Athletics Director Cliff Hagan was unceremoniously fired.
The ?88-89 team collapsed under the investigative weight. It won but 13 games, lost 19. Several games were played at the same time the school was in meetings with the NCAA, which led to a stiff probation that banned UK from post-season play for two seasons, landed it on the cover of Sports Illustrated under the heading "Kentucky?s Shame," and cost Sutton his job.
"It?s unfortunate the way Coach Sutton?s tenure ended, because he was one heck of a coach," says Walker. "He was one of the best defensive coaches I have ever seen. My senior year, we basically played man-to-man defense all year playing with three guards."
Barnes thinks Sutton "is one of the best teachers in the game of basketball. And in my view, he was, still is, one of the best bench coaches ever. When I was coaching with him, he would make some moves that at the time you would not see at all. And 99 percent of those times it was the correct move."
Sutton subsequently was hired in 1990 at Oklahoma State, where he has revived a formerly downtrodden program.
As for Sutton?s legacy at UK, Hacker fears it?s "already been written," mentioning the ?88-89 season ? UK?s first losing season in 61 years ? and the NCAA probation. "If one would only look, they would see he did some amazing things," Hacker said
