Kentucky’s Derby Fits Small Heads Following Loss To Umass, Wildcats Coach Pitino Removed Egos From Equation To Form Superior Team

Rick Pitino said a season like this one will never happen again at Kentucky, and should it end with the 1996 NCAA men’s basketball championship, the Wildcats will owe a measure of thanks to Massachusetts.

Pitino entered the season with the traditional plan of using his five best players a majority of the time. After a disappointing 92-82 loss to the Minutemen on Nov. 26, however, Pitino decided he didn’t have five best players, he had 10.

It appears he was right. Kentucky has won 31 of 32 games since then and beaten its four NCAA tournament opponents by an average of 28 points to advance to Saturday’s national semifinals against - deliciously enough - U-Mass.

Kentucky is the lone Final Four team without a player averaging at least 18 points per game. Just Wildcats Tony Delk (17.5 points), Antoine Walker (15.4) and Walter McCarty (11.6) average in double figures, yet the team scores 92.2 points per game.

No Kentucky player averages more than 27 minutes of playing time but nine average at least 13 minutes and a 10th, guard Allen Edwards, checks in at 9.6. (By contrast, U-Mass guards Carmelo Travieso and Edgar Padilla each average 36 of a game’s 40 minutes.) The constant wave of fresh players helps Kentucky maintain defensive pressure that has opponents averaging almost 23 turnovers a game.

All of this is an anomaly at a time when college players regularly transfer if they feel they aren’t getting the playing time necessary to enhance their expectations of an NBA career. Although the Wildcats have had their share of flash points this season - at one point, Delk was concerned he wasn’t getting the spotlight he needed to gain all-America status, and Edwards threatened to transfer - Pitino obviously has made his 10-player system fly.

“Coach is a great salesman; he took 15 guys with big egos and attitudes and sold us the bridge,” reserve center Mark Pope said. “He’s convinced us that what we all really want is a national championship, and the playing time doesn’t matter. He’s taken the individual out of the equation - everybody said he couldn’t do it, but he has.”

“The only thing missing in my life, basketball-wise, is never winning a championship; not in high school, not in AAU ball,” said swingman Ron Mercer, a freshman who was the national high school player of the year last season at Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va. “Of all the places I could have gone to school, I thought this was the closest to winning the championship. Maybe if I was a junior or a senior, I might be upset at not getting all the (playing) time, but I know my time is going to come.”

A basketball itinerant who has made stops as an assistant at Syracuse and head coach at Providence (where he led the Friars to the Final Four in 1985) and the NBA’s New York Knicks, Pitino said he’s never stayed in one place long enough to put together the type of team he’s always wanted - one that features quickness, speed and ballhandling ability, with players, he said, “who can put their chins on the rim.”

When Pitino couldn’t find what he wanted in the players he recruited for Kentucky, he got it in transfers such as Pope (University of Washington) and Derek Anderson (Ohio State) - to the point that Kentucky almost has too many good players.

“That’s true, and it can be a problem, but it’s a nice problem to have,” said Utah coach Rick Majerus, whose team lost to Kentucky 101-70 in the Midwest regional semifinal. “It’s like having too much money … yeah, it’s a problem, but you’d rather have that than the alternative.”

Kentucky’s 1993 team, which featured Dallas Mavericks forward Jamal Mashburn, reached the Final Four, but according to Pitino, “there was a big difference between the talent level of the first and second team.” Mashburn had foul trouble in the national semifinals and the team lost to Michigan in overtime.

This season, Mercer shares time with Anderson, who was on the Big Ten’s all-freshmen team before transferring. Pope averaged 12 points and eight rebounds for Washington in 1993 before coming to Kentucky. Edwards said he decided to stay when Delk convinced him to be patient.

“We’re all so equal; it’s hard to be ‘The Man’ on a team like this,” Edwards said.

Said Anderson, “Everybody’s had their opportunity, everybody’s had their chance and it’s given everyone confidence.