NCAA at 75 - College Basketball
59. Kentucky, 1949
In some ways it shouldn't have come as a surprise that Kentucky claimed its second straight NCAA title in 1949. The Wildcats, after all, returned the player who had won them the trophy the previous season. Alex Groza was a three-time All-American and the leading scorer on the 1948 U.S. Olympic team. Groza scored 25 points -- no other Wildcat tallied more than five points --- in Kentucky's 46-36 victory over Oklahoma A&M in the national championship game in Seattle. He was then selected with the No. 1 pick in the 1949 NBA draft by the Indianapolis Olympians, for whom he averaged 23.4 points as a rookie. But in 1951, an investigation revealed that Groza and teammates Ralph Beard and Dale Barnstable accepted bribes to shave points while at Kentucky. Groza and Beard were banned from the NBA for life. -- Jason King
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