It has been 34 years and two days since the Princeton Tigers and Kentucky Wildcats last met. The location was the Palestra in West Philadelphia and the circumstance was - like it will be again on Thursday - the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
I did research this afternoon on this prior postseason pairing and had Princeton's leading scorer that day, Frank Sowinski, flesh out a few of the details for me.
Despite having lost Armond Hill, Mickey Steuerer, Barnes Hauptfuhrer and Peter Molloy in the spring, Princeton would go 21-5 in 1976-77, defeating Notre Dame at home and claiming the Ivy League title with a 13-1 record. A 62-49 home win over Cornell was the program’s 1,000th overall victory.
"The night before the Kentucky game, several members of the team went to see a newly-released movie at the local theatre at Nassau Street and Washington Road," Sowinski recalled. "On our way to our seats, several people shouted out encouragement for the upcoming game. That movie was "Rocky." As the final credits began to roll, you began to hear a chant in the crowd."
"As it got louder and louder you can tell that they were yelling, "KENTUCKY, KENTUCKY, KENTUCKY."
The Tigers entered this tilt the winners of 12 straight while sixth-ranked Kentucky was victorious in 15 of their prior 16 games.
"The game was a David versus Goliath match up," said Sowinski, who had been honored as the 1976-77 Ivy League Player of the Year. "The newspapers ran a picture of me guarding Robey and I looked like a midget. Kentucky was a very deep team with eight or nine very physical, talented players. We made a run at them when we were down by five early in the second half making five of our first seven shots (31-26 with 18:36 to play - JS).
"The only problem was that we got burned by a back up guard named Truman Claytor who hit four bombs enabling them to go six for seven and we couldn’t close the gap."
Claytor had 12 points for the Wildcats on 6-8 marksmanship.
Princeton converted a season low 28% of their field goals in the first half and trailed 29-22 at halftime. The Wildcats extended that lead to 47-34 as they continued their hot shooting and made 11 of their first 12 attempts after intermission.
The 6'10" "twin towers" of Rick Robey (20 points, nine rebounds) and Mike Phillips took away Princeton's backdoor looks.
Princeton would fall behind by as many as 18 down the stretch.
Sowinski finished with a team-high 16 points on 4-11 shooting, but "The Polish Rifle" had six turnovers. Omeltchenko added 10, as did Tom Young in only seven minutes of action.
Said Pete Carril after the game "[Kentucky is] the best team we've played in three years. That's a great defensive team."
The Wildcats would get knocked out by North Carolina in the East Regional final but returned in 1977-78 to win the NCAA title over Duke behind MVP Jack "Goose" Givens.
