![]() Kentucky, down 11 at halftime, had chipped away and chipped away. Tonight, he made the basket that mattered most. Sunday, against Illinois, he made the two free throws that won the game with four seconds left. Plansky won't be a first-round draft pick. We had three first-round draft picks on that team. You can't help but talk about '85, especially since we played the regional in the exact same building back then. "We've earned that these last couple of weeks. "This team has its own identity now," he said. He has been through the roller coaster ride the last three seasons. Mark Plansky did play on that team, a freshman who had a limited role. He was a high school senior watching on television. "Everything we did, seemed to come out just right." "It really reminded me of that championship game in '85," said Kenny Wilson, the tiny point guard who coolly ran the offense with Kentucky pressing at the end. Villanova led for the last 27 minutes of the game and never trailed by more than three - that coming at 3-0 when Chapman nailed his first shot of the game. You could tell before the game that our kids knew they were going to win. "That was in January when nobody thought we were any good. John's," said Olive, who was Massimino's first recruit 16 years ago. "Tonight reminded me of our first Big East game up at St. Massimino never mentioned the column or the letter to his team. They can if they know what they're doing and Secretariat doesn't. ![]() It talked about how the Big Blue would intimidate the officials and it concluded this way: "Mules can't outrun Secretariat." Then this afternoon came the two-page, single-spaced registered letter from a Kentucky booster telling Massimino his team had no chance. This morning, a local columnist here wrote a lengthy paean to Kentucky's basketball tradition - leaving out the betting scandals and probations as if they never happened - and said simply that Villanova was just over it's plucky little head against the mighty Big Blue. If Massimino had wanted to play psychological games with his team, the kind that coaches usually love, he would have had plenty of ammunition. This time, they shot 57 percent from the field and 17 for 17 from the free throw line and, as Kentucky Coach Eddie Sutton pointed out, "every time we made a run, one of their guys stepped forward." This game was a little bit of deja vu, a tiny reminder of that perfect night in 1985 when the Wildcats shot 79 percent against Georgetown and won the national championship. The way they played tonight really did amaze me." "The way they played amazed me," said Coach Rollie Massimino, who has once again proved his genius with this team. When they had to have a basket with 2:25 left to play and Kentucky pressing and the shot clock running down, they didn't doubt. When official Paul Housman took away a critical Doug West dunk with the lead down to six and almost 11 minutes still left, they didn't doubt. When Rex Chapman, who was brilliant all evening, banked in a three-point shot in the second minute of the game, one of those horseshoe shots that makes everyone in the building giggle, they didn't doubt. The Wildcats beat Kentucky, 80-74, tonight to reach the Southeast regional final for one reason and one reason only: They never doubted. When he did talk, his voice still quavered with emotion. BIRMINGHAM - John Olive, Villanova's senior assistant coach, stood in a hallway outside his team's locker room tonight, so drained he could barely raise his voice above a whisper.
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