Forty Minutes To Glory

We watched the Duke tape tonight and everybody saw the same thing. Their zone is wide open in the middle, and their center, Mike Gminski, will not challenge you if you get the ball inside. That's what we want to do against them. Hit the man in the middle and then take it to Gminski.

Sunday, March 26—An Associated Press story suggests that Hall may retire after Monday night's game. But the article does not bother Hall as much as the discovery that, only a week before, 400 people had been taken ill at the Wildcats' hotel.

Every year since I've been at Kentucky there has been a story that I would be fired or that I would quit. Do you realize what that does to your recruiting? Last year at this time Brent Musburger of CBS broadcast that I was being fired. We got our athletic director, Cliff Hagan, to call him up and demand a retraction. So about two weeks later, at 3 a.m., I'm sleeping when I get a phone call. Here's the conversation:

" Coach Hall?"

"Yes."

"This is Brent Musburger. I'm sorry about that erroneous story...." (click).

Monday, March 27—Hall spends the day reading newspapers in his hotel room, flabbergasted by comments that his team does not appear to be "having fun." In 1975, when Kentucky played in the NCAA finals in San Diego, Hall spent all of his time being interviewed, while his team traipsed off on sightseeing trips to the zoo, a marine exhibit and other attractions. Wiser now, Hall has vowed to avoid distractions. He is the only one of the final-four coaches who refused to be wired for television. And now at 3:30 p.m. he sends someone to make sure the players are resting.

Meanwhile, Kentucky fan Wilma Watson of Waynesville, Ohio is at the Dayton airport and frantic. Can she make it to St. Louis in time for the final game? No way, says the ticket agent. "But I have to be there!" she fibs. "I'm singing the national anthem." Concerned now, the agent devises a special routing that will get her to the game on time.

Late in the afternoon, just before the Wildcats are to leave for the arena, there is a knock on Hall's door. A group of eight players whom he coached 15 years ago at Regis has come to visit. Hall is touched. All day he has been reading that his Kentucky players are cold, emotionless. When he walks with the Regis delegation to the elevator his eyes are glistening.

At the arena, Kentucky's players, probably for the first time all year, appear to be more relaxed than their coach. While Notre Dame and Arkansas play in the consolation game and Wilma Watson settles into her seat, the Wildcats lounge around their dressing quarters. When someone asks Kyle Macy about the condition of his knee, he says, "It's a game knee. It's all right the day of a game. Heh, heh." Coming from the normally taciturn Macy, the comment is a speech.