{"id":86776,"date":"2025-07-23T20:01:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T20:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/86776\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T20:01:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T20:01:13","slug":"that-time-kentucky-swapped-players-at-the-free-throw-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/86776\/","title":{"rendered":"That time Kentucky swapped players at the free throw line"},"content":{"rendered":"

The controversial ending in last night\u2019s TBT game between La Familia and Eberlein Drive, when Willie Cauley-Stein faked an injury to put Archie Goodwin on the free throw line<\/strong>, may have triggered a memory for any Kentucky fans who followed the 1993-94 college basketball season. The switcharoo did not work for La Familia in TBT, as Archie Goodwin missed the game-winning free throw in Cauley-Stein\u2019s place; however, it did for Rick Pitino\u2019s Wildcats at Vanderbilt in February 1994.<\/p>\n

For those who don\u2019t remember or didn\u2019t live it: Jared Prickett went 0-for-4 at the free throw line that February night in Nashville, so Travis Ford, being the heady point guard that he was, told Gimel Martinez to slide in for Prickett after Prickett drew a foul grabbing a defensive rebound under Vanderbilt\u2019s basket. Walking the length of the court for the foul shots on the other end, Prickett and Martinez successfully pulled off the switch despite Vanderbilt\u2019s Dan Hall arguing to the officials that it was Prickett who was fouled, not Martinez, a career 78-percent shooter. Ralph Hacker and Kyle Macy even pointed out the mistake on the UK radio broadcast.<\/p>\n

Still, Martinez shot the free throws for Pickett, making one of two to extend Kentucky\u2019s lead to eight with two and a half minutes to go, helping seal the victory for UK. Meanwhile, a chorus of boos rang out in Memorial Gym in an attempt to drown out the \u201cGo-Big-Blues\u201d from the away team\u2019s supporters. In a game write-up found on Big Blue History<\/a>, Dr. J\u2019s UK Newsletter wrote, \u201c(Travis) Ford fouled out shortly afterwards, and he left the floor to a surprisingly loud number of boos from the fans. I didn\u2019t understand this at the time, but perhaps they realized that Ford had orchestrated the free throw switches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ford also directed Walter McCarty to shoot free throws for Andre Riddick earlier in the game when the officiating crew hadn\u2019t determined if McCarty or Riddick had been fouled. Ford did not deny taking advantage of the confusing situation.<\/p>\n

A one-game suspension<\/p>\n

Four days after the Vanderbilt game, the three involved players \u2014 Ford, Martinez, and Prickett \u2014 served a one-game suspension, missing Kentucky\u2019s trip to Knoxville to play Tennessee. Rick Pitino said of the decision<\/a>, \u201cThis type of behavior cannot be tolerated from a Kentucky ballplayer\u2026 These three men are outstanding young men who work very, very hard, but they made a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kentucky beat Tennessee with only eight players, overcoming a double-digit deficit to win 77-73 in Knoxville. Between the Vanderbilt and Tennessee trips, the Southeastern Conference reviewed the tape from Nashville and released a statement saying, \u201cIt has been stressed to the officiating crew that although it was an inadvertent error, their administration of the free throws was unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

If only it had worked out for La Familia last night.<\/p>\n

[FINAL: La Familia\u2019s 4th quarter comeback comes up short in 71-70 loss to Eberlein Drive]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The controversial ending in last night\u2019s TBT game between La Familia and Eberlein Drive, when Willie Cauley-Stein faked…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":86777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-86776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114904333323186111","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}