March 23, 1948: The University of Kentucky win the NCAA Basketball Tournament for the 1st time, defeating Baylor University, 58-42 at the old Madison Square Garden in New York.
Baylor had a player named Jackie Robinson -- a white man who would play with some of the Kentucky players on the 1948 U.S. Olympic Team in London, and became a minister. That's the most interesting thing about the Baylor squad.
But the Kentucky team was perhaps the best college basketball team ever assembled to this point. Their head coach, Adolph Rupp, called them "The Fabulous Five": Guards Ralph Beard and Kenny Rollins, forwards Wallace "Wah Wah" Jones and Cliff Barker, and center Alex Groza. They went 34-2, with the only losses being by 1 point to Temple in Philadelphia, a loss they avenged by 20 points in a rematch in Lexington; and 9 away to Notre Dame.
Rupp had been born in 1901 in Kansas, and had played at the University of Kansas under Forrest "Phog" Allen, while Allen's mentor, Dr. James Naismith, the literal inventor of basketball, was still alive and teaching there. After coaching in high school, Kentucky named him head coach in 1930, and he would lead them to 27 Southeastern Conference titles, 13 SEC Tournament wins, and 876 wins, more than any coach before him. He became known as "the Baron of the Bluegrass."
Rollins graduated in 1948, but the other four of the returned for the 1948-49 season. Dale Barnstable took Rollins' place in the starting lineup, and the Wildcats went 32-2, losing by 2 away to Saint Louis University, and by 11 against Loyola of Chicago, knocking UK out of the NIT at The Garden. But they won the NCAA, beating Oklahoma A&M (who became Oklahoma State in 1958) in the Final at Seattle.
After the 1949 NCAA Tournament, Coach Rupp then retired the uniform numbers of Beard, 12; Groza, 15; Barker, 23; Rollins, 26; and Jones, 27. Barnstable's 18 has never been retired.
It was these back-to-back National Championships that established Kentucky as an elite team. Fans of the "Bluegrass Boys" are sometimes mocked as the "Blue Bloods," and are said to be as arrogant as fans of the New York Yankees, the Dallas Cowboys, the Boston Celtics, the basketball team at Duke University, and the football team at the University of Notre Dame. (The Yankees, the Cowboys and Duke also wear blue and white; Notre Dame, blue but with gold.)
In 1948, Rollins was selected by the Fort Wayne Pistons in the NBA Draft, but they traded him to the Chicago Stags. In 1949, a new team in the NBA, the Indianapolis Olympians, tried to reassemble the U.S. Olympic Team. They selected Groza in the 1st round of the NBA Draft, Beard in the 2nd round. Barker was drafted by the Washington Capitols, but the Olympians acquired him in a trade. Barnstable was drafted by the Boston Celtics in 1950, but instead took a teaching and coaching job at a Louisville high school.
With Barker as player-coach, the Olympians won the NBA Western Division in 1950, and beat the Sheboygan Red Skins in the 1st round of the Playoffs, before losing the Division Finals to the Anderson Packers. In 1951, they just made the Playoffs, and lost to the Minneapolis Lakers in the 1st round.
But at the start of the 1951-52 season, Groza, Beard and Barnstable were arrested for taking bribes from gamblers to "shave points" while they were at Kentucky. When the dust settled in 1952, they were banned from the NBA for life. UK got its 1952-53 season canceled, and was banned from competing in the NCAA Tournament and the NIT in 1954.
Barker, Rollins and Jones were not implicated, and were allowed to play the 1951-52 season. But Barker and Jones left Olympians after that season, and never played professionally again. Rollins last played in 1953, with the Celtics. After that season, the Olympians folded, having lost to the Lakers again in the Playoffs in 1952 and '53.
Kentucky, still banned from the postseason at that point, went 25-0 in 1954, and the Helms Foundation declared them -- not NCAA Champion LaSalle or NIT Champion Holy Cross -- the National Champions.
Kentucky would win another title in 1958, with a bunch of players that Rupp said were "just fiddling around." Thus, they became known as the Fiddlin' Five. They made the Final again in 1966, with a team lacking much height, and thus known as "Rupp's Runts," but famously lost to the school now known as Texas-El Paso. This would lead to Rupp finally racially integrating his team.
After his retirement, Joe B. Hall, a reserve on the 1949 and 1951 title teams, led Kentucky to the National Championship in 1978, a few months after Rupp's death. Rick Pitino did so in 1996, Tubby Smith in 1998, and John Calipari in 2012. Baylor made what would later be called the Final Four again in 1950, but did not do so again until 2021, when they won the whole thing. By that point, they had become better known for their successful women's basketball program.
Groza, brother of Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Lou Groza, would later coach in college and in the ABA. Beard tried to play professional baseball, but his gambling connection got him banned from that sport as well. He became a scout for the ABA's Kentucky Colonels, and worked in the pharmaceutical industry. Barnstable wasn't playing in the pros anyway, but had gotten a job as a high school coach in Louisville, and was fired from that job as a result of the scandal. He later became a successful seller of air filters, and won senior golf tournaments. But none of the 3 were were ever involved in the NBA again, as their bans were never lifted.
Groza died in 1995, Barker in 1998, Beard in 2007, Rollins in 2012, Jones in 2014, Barnstable in 2019. None of them has ever been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. They were, however, all allowed to keep their Olympic Gold Medals.
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March 23, 1948 was a Tuesday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. And the NHL was between the end of the regular season and the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
There were 2 games in the NBA. The Chicago Stags beat the Washington Capitols, 74-70 at the Chicago Stadium. And the St. Louis Bombers beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 60-58 at the St. Louis Arena.
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