Tonight is a happy night for Kentucky Basketball, which advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for just the second time in the past four seasons with a 76-57 win over Troy; however, Mark Pope also had some sad news to pass along. Toward the end of his press conference, Pope announced that Kentucky Basketball legend Vernon Hatton passed away today, shortly before tipoff. He was 89 years old.
“So you think about tough things. The great Vernon Hatton, he’s a legend, all-time legend at the University of Kentucky. He passed away just before the game. I just heard that after the game.”
Hatton helped lead Kentucky to the 1958 national championship, averaging a team-high 17.1 points per game en route to All-American honors. Hatton finished his career with 1,153 points and averaged in double figures in all three seasons. He was drafted in the second round of the 1958 NBA Draft by the Cincinnati Royals and played four seasons in the NBA.
Hatton’s most memorable moment as a Wildcat came in December 1957, when he hit a 47-footer to force a second overtime vs. Temple, a game Kentucky would win in three overtimes. He also hit the game-winning shot against Temple in the NCAA Tournament that season to send the Cats to the championship game vs. Seattle, a game in which he would score 30. His No. 52 jersey now hangs in the rafters at Rupp Arena.
I had a chance to go spend some time with him a couple of weeks ago, and maybe we spent — Marc Hill and I got to go,” Pope said tonight. “I don’t know if we spent an hour with him and listened to stories. I could have spent day after day after day. What an amazing trailblazer he is and a great member of the BBN community and what a great legendary basketball player he was. He was also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was a trailblazer in the game of basketball for me and Kentucky in that way.”
“It’s just an example. I mean, he just is a beautiful human being and gave so much to this state and this community. So we’ll mourn his loss also. That’s BBN. There’s a whole lot of goodness.”
Rest in Peace, Vernon.
