The greatest programs: No. 7, Louisville

Posted: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 5:01 PM
Filed Under: Greatest hoops programs

Quick: The most storied coach in your school’s history has retired and you’re trying to maintain your status among the all-time elite programs. How do you do it? By transitioning from one Hall of Fame coach to a future Hall of Famer.

That’s how they roll at Louisville, No. 7 on the list of greatest college basketball programs.

When the Cardinals made the transition from Denny Crum – he of the two NCAA tournament titles, five Final fours and nearly 700 career wins – to Rick Pitino in 2001, they’d just missed the NCAA tourney for the second time in four seasons. Heck, it was the second time in four years that they’d failed to finish above .500.

When Pitino guided Louisville to its eighth Final Four in 2005 – four years into the job – it was a sign that one of the game’s legendary schools was firmly re-established as a perennial contender. Must be nice to have that kind of coaching pedigree in Freedom Hall.

Consider what Crum, Pitino and Louisville’s first great coach, “Peck” Hickman have built:

• Louisville’s one of 14 schools with multiple NCAA titles and is the only school to win the Big Dance, NIT and NAIB (a pre-cursor to the NAIA, which was second-fiddle to the NIT in 1948). Its eight Final Fours are tied with Indiana for seventh most all time.
• The Cardinals’ 1,556 wins are more than Arizona or UConn, while their .654 win percentage is better than Indiana.
• Louisville’s 57 NCAA tourney wins are seventh most, the sixth most appearances in the Big Dance (34) and has 20 regular-season conference championships (same as Indiana).
• The Cards have had five players be named consensus All-American six times, the 1980 Wooden Award winner (Darrell Griffith) and has always featured NBA talent on the roster, giving them some of the best players in NCAA history.

This all started with Hickman, who never had a losing season at Louisville and turned a middling basketball school into one to watch. (His career record, 443-183, actually gives him a better win percentage than Crum or Pitino, amazingly enough.)

After winning the NAIB in ’48, the Cards were a regular in the NIT, which was vying with the NCAAs to be the postseason tourney. Louisville went for five consecutive seasons before winning in 1956 behind massive post player Charlie Tyra, the school’s first big star.

Tyra still holds school records for most rebounds for a game (38), season (645) and career (1,617). He also ranks fourth in career scoring average (18.2). The guy could play.

Three years later, Hickman’s squad was in the school’s first Final Four, losing to Jerry West’s West Virginia team. He closed out his coaching career in 1967, coaching a 23-5 Cardinal team that featured Wes Unseld and Butch Beard, two Louisville natives.

Unseld – a two-time consensus All-American – could be considered the school’s best player, though he and Beard could never break through in the Big Dance. Louisville made the NCAA or the NIT in each of John Dromo’s four seasons, but when a heart attack forced him to retire in 1971, it opened the door for Crum, who wasted no time in making his mark at Louisville.

His first team went 26-5 and reached the Final Four.

That Final Four was the first of two in which Crum, as an assistant coach and lead recruiter for John Wooden at UCLA, faced his former mentor. The first time wasn’t so pretty, losing 96-77. The second time, during Wooden’s final season in 1975, nearly set up a bluegrass showdown for the NCAA title.

But the Bruins’ 75-74 overtime win prevented a final against in-state rival Kentucky, which would’ve simply added to the lore between the two schools.

So Crum hit the recruiting trail. His eyes must have bulged when he saw this 1976 photo of Griffith soaring over an opponent. With Griffith -- a 6-4 guard with a 48-inch vertical leap -- coming to Louisville, the Cards started to build a rep as a high-flying, exciting team to watch.

By the late ‘70s, they sported one of the game’s great monikers, “Doctors of Dunk” and were a force on the court. Whether it was Griffith making a steal, Derek Smith soaring above the rim or Rodney McCray controlling the boards, few teams wanted to play the Cards. (They even invented the High-5!)

Louisville entered the 1980 NCAA tournament 28-3 and was a serious contender. When every No. 1 seed was knocked out, the Cards’ path for their first title was cleared (not that beating UCLA in the championship was an easy task.)

Crum’s squad reached the Final Four again in 1982 and 1983, the second time with another highlight-reel, talent-rich team. When they played Houston – “Phi Slamma Jamma” – in the ’83 Final Four, the result was one of the game’s most jaw-dropping aerial spectacles that was essentially a precursor to today’s above-the-rim game.

When Crum had Louisville in the Final Four again in 1986, the Cards were viewed as a good, but not great team. Most thought Duke or Kansas would win the title. But Louisville, coming off another season that featured a brutal non-conference schedule, surprised Duke in the title game with some steady play from Milt Wagner and two late free throws by freshman Pervis Ellison. Maybe you’ve heard of his nickname.

Louisville never reached the same heights again under  Crum, though there were more years of conference titles, trips to the Elite Eight and the occasional group that didn’t feature NBA caliber players but still managed to win plenty of games.

Crum retired in 2001 with a résumé that included two titles, 3 coach of the year awards and a spot in the Hall of Fame.

If Pitino were to replicate the success he had at Kentucky – three Final Fours and a title in eight seasons – he would begin to match what Crum did at Louisville and could help take the Cardinals futher up this list. But that’s what they do at Louisville.