By Keith Taylor
Special to NKyTribune
Walter McCarty still shakes his head in disbelief when he thinks about how much time has passed since Kentucky won the school’s sixth national championship nearly two decades ago.
“I can believe it and I can’t believe it — if that makes any sense,” said McCarty, now an assistant coach with the Boston Celtics. “Sometimes after (my playing career ended), I can believe it, but looking back, it seems like yesterday when we were all together.”
This season marks the 20th anniversary of the school’s 1995-96 squad that won the national championship, six years after the historic program was rocked by probation, which included a two-year postseason ban.
Former coach Rick Pitino, now in his 15th season at Louisville, assembled one of the top squads in school history that featured seniors Tony Delk and McCarty. The Wildcats split their first two games, including a 92-82 loss to UMass, led by current Kentucky coach John Calipari.
Following the setback to the Minutemen, Kentucky reeled off 25 consecutive victories and didn’t lose again until it dropped an 84-73 setback to Mississippi State in the Southeastern Conference Tournament finals.
From that point on, “The Untouchables” were unstoppable as the Wildcats won all six of their NCAA Tournament games, capped by a 76-67 victory over Syracuse in the championship game.
Delk had a big hand in the finale, draining a record-tying seven 3-pointers and scoring 24 points in his final collegiate contest.
“Getting that far and playing a lot of big games in my Kentucky career, I just thought of it as another game,” Delk said. “I had to go out and deliver.”
To go along with his memorable finish, Delk credits Pitino for bringing the team together throughout the season.
“Coach Pitino did a tremendous job of meshing talent as well as the egos,” Delk said. “The players put in the hard work from the start of the season. You look at it collectively as a team, guys had to sacrifice and understand everyone had a role on the team. Everyone couldn’t be the star, take all the shots and play all the minutes. You had to share in some of your success in order (for the team) to be successful.”
Now that he’s entered the coaching profession, McCarty now understands how much it took for the Wildcats to succeed.
“It’s hard (to mesh talent) to do when you had 11 of 12 guys (on that team) who played professional basketball,” he said. “You think back on it, it was tough, but we liked each other and we knew each other in and out. It takes a lot of effort for those guys to do that. It was a special team.”
A large part of the team’s success that season was because of a season-ending loss to North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament the previous year. The Wildcats were heavily favored to reach the Final Four, but suffered a 74-61 loss to the Tar Heels in the Southeast Regional finals and ended with a 28-5 mark.
“Losing to North Carolina the year before really hurt us, because we thought we were a championship team,” McCarty said. “Losing that game put it in perspective of what we had to do (to win a national championship).”
Delk agreed.
“That was a real disappointing loss,” he said.
Despite the loss, the Wildcats stepped it up and achieved their goal of winning a national championship one year later. A big reason for the turnaround was a renewed emphasis on defense and a willingness to share the ball on offense.
“That’s what really helped us out,” Delk said. “Night in and night out, everybody was committed defensively, from the five guys on the court to the guys who came off the bench. We sacrificed a lot of our offense. We believed in our defense, which is what really got us over the top to win (games) by large margins against most teams.”
Even though almost two decades have passed since the feat, it remains a memorable accomplishment.
“We appreciate it now and we appreciated then,” McCarty said. “It’s a special feeling.”
Game tracker: Kentucky vs. Louisville, Noon, Saturday. TV/Radio: CBS (Channel 27), 98.1 FM WBUL.
Keith Taylor is a columnist and senior sports writer who covers University of Kentucky athletics for KyForward.com