By LARRY VAUGHT
The Cats lost 73-64 in Rupp Arena on Valentine’s Day to Mississippi and were booed by some Big Blue fans. The Cats went on to win the next 13 games, including an 86-84 comeback win over Duke in the NCAA regional final and 86-85 overtime win over Stanford in the national semifinals, to finish the season 35-4.
“After the Ole Miss game I was quoted as saying ‘we were the worst 22-4 team in the history of college basketball,’” Padgett, who hit a key 3-pointer in the Duke comeback, said. “Not a lot of people know what goes on behind the scenes with a team. We had been to back-to-back national championship games and were used to playing a certain way.
“Tubby got there and we just wanted to do what we had been doing. Tubby had his own way and to be honest, his way was a better fit for us (than Rick Pitino’s would have been). We were not as athletic as the previous two teams and pressing (full court) for 40 minutes would not have made sense for us.
“We had to learn ball line defense, more motion offense. I think a lot of us fought that and it took until that loss to Ole Miss for us to have a team meeting and realize if we keep going the way we are going this is not going to end the way we want. So we bought into his two-a-day practices, 6 a.m. practices. But looking back, if we had not lost to Ole Miss we probably never would have won the championship.”
Padgett, a Louisville native who now is an assistant coach at Mississippi State, grew up dreaming of playing for Kentucky like many Kentucky youngsters do.
“With no professional sports in our team, my dream was to play at Kentucky and win a national championship,” Padgett, an 8-year NBA veteran, said. “It was so weird at such a young age in life to have your dreams come true.
“I was lucky to go there but as much as I loved Kentucky the best part was the guys I played with. I am almost 49 and still get on group chats and texts with the guys. We had a special, special group. Very few teams get as close or focused on the process as we did to win that championship. It took me a long time to appreciate that and realize how special it was.”
