Go-go With Bobby Joe

In the Kentucky locker room Rupp asked, "Who's captain tonight?" Somebody said Riley was.

"It's his birthday tomorrow," Conley said.

"What?" asked Rupp .

"It's Pat's birthday tomorrow," Conley repeated.

"All right then, let's have a birthday present for him," Rupp said, and then they sat and waited for the consolation game to end. Rupp put on his brown jacket. He believes brown suits are lucky. He also thinks it's lucky if he finds a bobby pin, and last year, the worst year he ever had at Kentucky , the players took to planting bobby pins in his path. This year such deceits were unnecessary. "Duke beat Utah by two," Mike Harreld said, rushing into the Wildcat dressing room, and the team jumped up and ran out on the floor to try to win a fifth championship for Adolph Rupp .

It was a lost cause almost from the start. Kentucky 's shooting failed in the face of the tough Miner defense, and even the shots the Wildcats made were individual tributes to Dampier's and Riley 's skill. Haskins had been saying his team was capable of better defense than it had shown for weeks. In the finals Texas Western proved that was true.

Midway through the first half, the score was tied 9-9 when TW made a foul shot. And then came the most significant sequence of the tournament. Hill, way over on the right side, stole the ball from Kron, dribbled half the court and scored. Dampier brought it back up, looked to Hill at midcourt, switched left, and there was Hill, waiting. Cleanly, Bobby Joe snapped the ball off Dampier's dribble and took it all the way in for another easy layup. That broke the game open. Thereafter Kentucky chased the lead and never caught it, and the Miners were in command. Bobby Joe stole the ball again from Dampier, and all night, while dribbling, he looked like the best broken-field runner since Red Grange . As late as eight minutes into the second half the Wildcats were only a point behind, but they never could come all the way back. Once they had three successive shots at a tie and missed them all: Dampier, Cliff Berger and Riley .

The Wildcats played fine defense themselves, but Texas Western showed that it could control the ball even against tight guarding. And the three little men—Hill, Artis and Worsley—were able to hit just enough from far outside, without trying to penetrate the Kentucky zone. Those were the long jumpers that Kentucky kept missing. When the Wildcats fouled in desperation, Texas Western made the free throws. Over one 37-minute stretch the Miners hit 26 of 27.

At the end, to the cheers of their fans, Hill and Worsley just dribbled around till the clock ran out. Finally the Miners were all cutting the nets down—both of them—and getting their watches. Haskins called out his seniors—Artis, Flournoy and Armstrong—to receive the NCAA trophy. But the second-place trophy, which appears identical in size and weight and will soon be sitting alongside the four others of better memories down in Lexington , was like an albatross. No one really wanted it. Tommy Kron somehow ended up with it in his arms and, clutching it absently, hurried into the locker room. There he dropped it on the trainer's table. He sat down and began to cry. Louie Dampier came over and put his arm around Kron and hugged him. Spike Kerns came in, and, just to get the dread object out of the way, reached up and put the trophy on the shelf, just above the hook where Mike Harreld's extra suit hung, neat and clean in the plastic bag.

Across the hall Bill Cornwall held the game ball. Now that he had gotten that for his friend Don, Mary Haskins could have her husband back.