The worst contract ever negotiated. Kentucky’s key player deal is criticized as the star’s official banishment is announced.

At Memorial Coliseum on Dec. 7, 1957, with UK trailing Temple 71-69 with one second left in overtime, Hatton arced in a 47-foot set shot that sent the game to a second OT. UK eventually prevailed, 85-83, in triple overtime.

On December 7, 1957, at Memorial Coliseum, with one second remaining in overtime and UK trailing Temple 71-69, Hatton drained a 47-foot set shot to send the game to overtime. UK eventually won, 85-83, in triple overtime.

Hatton also made the game-winning shot, a reverse layup with 17 seconds left, as Kentucky defeated Temple, 61-60, in the 1958 Final Four at Louisville’s Freedom Hall. Hatton scored a game-high 30 points in the following night’s NCAA championship game, which UK won 84-72 over Seattle, coached by the legendary Elgin Baylor. Pope, of course, captained Kentucky’s 1996 NCAA championship team, averaging 7.6 points and 5.2 rebounds for Rick Pitino’s squad in 1995-96. Pope, 51, has taken over as head coach of UK after successful spells at Utah Valley and BYU.

I asked Hatton if Pope’s appointment as UK coach pushed the former BYU coach ahead of the late-1950s-era standout guard for the title of “most-prominent Mormon in Wildcats men’s hoops history.” “Well, he’s a later time,” Hatton said of Pope. “They’ll never beat my one-second shot” against Temple.

Hatton’s religious faith had an intriguing role in his rise to the status of Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball star. Hatton rose to prominence at Lafayette at a time when many young Mormons were being called by a General Authority (a church official) to serve on a foreign mission. In his case, Hatton claims that the then-Brigham Young University men’s basketball coach, Stan Watts, came to see him in Lexington.

 

Watts told the young basketball star, “’It’s not a calling like a missionary calling, but we’d like for you to come to Brigham Young and play basketball for us,’” Hatton recalls. Unlike UK, however, BYU was not offering Hatton a full-ride scholarship to play hoops. “They said, ‘We’ll get you a job and you can work your way (through school) a little bit, then we’ll talk about a scholarship a little later on,’” Hatton recalls. “That didn’t suit me too well.” So, his LDS faith notwithstanding, Hatton cast his lot with his hometown team, Kentucky. After he had starred while leading UK to the national championship as a college senior, Hatton says he got a phone call from Watts, the BYU coach. “He just said, ‘I think you made the wise choice,’” Hatton says. “So I felt pretty good about that.” Hatton’s 89th birthday will fall (Jan. 13) during Pope’s first season as John Calipari’s replacement as Kentucky head coach. Following the Wildcats closely remains a part of Hatton’s daily routine. “It’s still a lot of fun to listen to the games and watch them on TV,” Hatton says. In the stands two weeks ago at Rupp Arena for what was essentially a pep rally to welcome Pope as UK head coach, Hatton says he liked what he heard from the new man. “He is

quite a speaker,” Hatton says of Pope. “He just seems like a fine young man. He said, ‘We’re here to work, and we are going to bring some banners in.’” Noting that Kentucky has been holding at eight NCAA championship banners since 2012, Hatton hopes Pope understands the urgency that well-seasoned UK backers such as himself feel to see the Wildcats hang another national title banner in the rafters of Rupp Arena — and to do it soon. “Some of us would like to see another one before anything happens to us,” Hatton said. In a time when some Kentucky backers had grown weary of Calipari’s emphasis on one-and-done freshmen in UK’s roster construction, Hatton believes the fact that Pope is a Mormon may help him address that issue by bringing in some older players returning from mission trips. The first player to commit to UK after Pope became head coach, class of 2022 guard Collin Chandler, will enter UK in 2024-25 as a freshman after having completed a two-year Mormon mission trip that began in the West African country of Sierra Leone. “When you go on a two-year mission for the Mormon church, you kind of mature, you develop,” Hatton says. “I think (UK) will bring in some (older) players (coming back from missions) who would not have been available to any other coach except Mark Pope.” READ NEXT MARK STORY Three reasons to have hope in new UK basketball coach Mark Pope — and two areas for worry APRIL 13, 2024 8:06 AM READ NEXT