1978 UK National Title team honored at Rupp

LEXINGTON, Ky (UK Athletics) – The 1978 team is one of six programs being honored during the 2017-18 athletics season, as selected by a newly formed reunion committee UK has established to honor elite teams of the past.

Over the course of the 2017-18 season, the 2006-08 Kentucky football teams, the 1978 men’s basketball team, the 1988 baseball team, the 1987 and ’88 volleyball teams, the 1988 men’s tennis team, and the 1986 and ’88 women’s golf teams have been or will be honored. Adolph Rupp’s men’s basketball national championship teams (1948, ’49, ’51 and ’58) has been postponed to another season.

UK Athletics recently established a reunion committee as a way to honor great Kentucky teams of the past. The committee was formed to define official parameters of recognition, identify and select deserving teams, and coordinate dates and arrangements with the specific programs. Input from current head coaches and administrators was taken into account when setting the criteria.

Standards for selecting teams each year will include but is not limited to final records, conference championships and postseason finishes. The committee will place emphasis on honoring teams that coincide with yearly markers (for example, a 25th anniversary of a team’s championship), although other factors will be taken into consideration. Special attention was placed this year on teams that would typically fall outside the committee’s reunion windows moving forward.

The 1978 national championship team, Kentucky’s fifth and first without the legendary Adolph Rupp, capped a 30-2 season that included the SEC Tournament championship. Givens averaged 18.1 points, Rick Robey averaged 14.4 and Macy added 12.5 points per game. Givens put on one of the finest individual performances in NCAA championship history in leading the Wildcats past Duke in the national title game. Given scored 41 points, three short of the national championship game record. Robey added 20 points.