NCAA Tournament 2000 - Final Four finally here for Pelphrey

Final Four finally here for Pelphrey
Associated Press

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- The replay tells him otherwise, but John Pelphrey can still feel the leather. He thought he had both hands on the basketball.

That's how close it was, and that's how close Pelphrey was to being the hero in what many consider the greatest college basketball game ever played.

He's an assistant coach for Florida now, and Pelphrey, the former all-Southeastern Conference forward at Kentucky, has finally made it to the Final Four. Eight seasons ago, a trip was snatched from his hands by Duke and Christian Laettner's miracle shot at the buzzer.

The memories still linger.

"It's very, very tough for athletes when your career ends that way," Pelphrey said Tuesday.

His career ended on a play that ranks up there with The Catch and the Immaculate Reception in the collective memory of American sports fans.

Or, from Pelphrey's end of the action, it might draw comparisons to Bill Buckner's bobble or Jackie Smith's dropped touchdown catch in the Super Bowl.

There were 2.1 seconds remaining in overtime of the 1992 East regional final. Kentucky's Sean Woods hit a runner in the lane to put the Wildcats up by one.

After a timeout, Duke's Grant Hill released the ball from the opposite baseline. Laettner ran up from the baseline and snuggled himself near Pelphrey at the free throw line. The replay shows the ball just missing Pelphrey's outstretched hands. A full five inches taller than Pelphrey, Laettner collected the pass, then turned around and made the shot, a 16-foot jumper.

"It was so real to me," Pelphrey said, recalling the sensation of the ball hitting his hands, one that turned out not to be real.

Duke won 104-103. Pelphrey and the rest of that brokenhearted team dropped to the floor in shock. Their season ended one win, one point and one miraculous play away from a chance at their first and only Final Four.

It was the last chance at redemption for Pelphrey and the other seniors on that team.

They had come to Kentucky in 1987, before NCAA sanctions tarnished both the reputation and hopes of one of the country's most storied programs. They had been part of the only team to post a losing record since the days before Adolph Rupp.

Somehow, they had scratched their way back to respectability, then excellence, and were about to formally shed the label as being "the guys who were at Kentucky when Kentucky was bad," as Pelphrey puts it.

"We had put all our eggs in one basket and losing wasn't in the equation," he said. "To have it end so abruptly, and with things so obviously in your favor. And not only did the game end and your hopes for a national championship end, but so did your career. It was very, very tough."

Pelphrey got a job coaching at Oklahoma State for Eddie Sutton, the coach who recruited him to Kentucky in the late 1980s. Then, another twist of fate: Billy Donovan lured Pelphrey to Marshall in 1994, and Pelphrey missed Oklahoma State's trip to the Final Four a year later.

"He came so close," Donovan said. "Now, all of the sudden, he's in this situation. For him to be able to go to the Final Four right now ... to me, that's what brings a smile to my face."

Pelphrey's, too.

He has two kids now and a bright future. Some say the 31-year-old assistant could be a head coach as soon as next season.

"He's very intense," senior Kenyan Weaks said. "He gives you great detail. He really breaks down what other teams like to do. He knows the game."

Several seasons away from the heartbreak have added perspective. Pelphrey doesn't think anything will ever replace the void of not going to the Final Four as a player.

"But I can walk in my kids' rooms at night and they don't care one way or another whether that shot went in or out," he said. "The way things turned out, I can't say my life would be any better right now had that shot not gone down."


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