Steve Clevenger

On This Day in UK Basketball History

On March 24, 1947, before a Madison Square Garden record crowd of 18,493, Wat Misaka held Ralph Beard to two points and Utah ended the Wildcats’ bid for back-to-back NIT Championships.

 

On March 24, 1951, No. 1 Kentucky defeated No. 5 Illinois in the 1951 NCAA Final Four.  After UK standouts Bill Spivey and Cliff Hagan fouled out, Shelby Linville, a 6-foot-5 junior, scored Kentucky’s final six points, including the game-winning basket on a layup with 12 seconds left before 16,425 in the old Madison Square Garden in New York City.

 

On March 24, 2017, in a highly anticipated matchup with UCLA, which beat the Wildcats in the regular season in Rupp Arena, freshman point guard De’Aaron Fox scores an NCAA Tournament freshman record 39 points to propel UK to the Elite Eight.