2007-03-18 - 6:10 p.m.
The University of Arizona was at the pinnacle of college basketball from Sean Elliot's junior year in the 1987-1988 season that ended against Oklahoma in Lute Olson's first trip to the Final Four with the Wildcats.
The Hall of Fame coach also took Iowa to the Final Four.
Their end as one of the eilte programs ended on the same night Duke's ticket to the elite level was punched. It was the 2001 NCAA Championship Game when the Blue Devils won over the Wildcats. Neither program has been back to the Championship Game since.
Is Lute Olson a better coach than he was twenty years ago when he had his first 20 win season? I think so. The question that irks me is this: is he a better coach today than he was five years ago?
When the 'Cats were rolling, the first five minutes of every half was their signature time. Adjustments were made in the locker room and the team came out hungry to take control of the game. There were role players like Joe Turner, Craig McMillan, Wayne Womack, Matt Muelbach, Matt Othick, Jarvis Kelley, Joe Mclean and Gene Edgerson who stepped onto the court and made their presence felt.
For years, I believe, Olson was simply the best coach around. Players like Steve Kerr, Jud Buechler, Sean Rooks, Ed Stokes, Jason Terry and Channing Frye became NBA prospects, all of whom had some time in the league, because he brought their talent out like no ther coach could.
When his teams lost to guard oriented teams in the first rounds of '91 and '92, he became guard oriented to keep up. Then U of A became point guard U. The names are amazing: Khlaid Reeves, Reggie Geary, Damon Stoudamire, Mike Bibby and Jason Terry all were drafted by NBA teams. Jason Gardner played in Europe.
We come to the first concern. Is Lute ready to re-invent himself again? The drive for the title pushed him after Santa Clara, led by Steve Nash, knocked his number 2 seeded squad out in the first round of the 1992 tournament. He reached that pinnacle in 1997 with three guards, Bibby, Miles Simon and Michael Dickerson (he might have been a small forward since the two positions are interchangeable in Lute's system). A couple of overacheiving big men, Bennet Davison and AJ Bramlett, and Jason Terry coming off the bench, did just enough while Miles Simon made every play on the court to beat three number 1 seeds on the way to the title.
Since Coach Olson has started his run at Arizona, there have been many schools that have been seeded number 1 in the brackets at tourney time. Auburn, St. Joe's, Missouri, Wake Forest, Villanova, Cincinnati, Stanford and Washington have all been ranked as one of the four best teams from 1988 to 2001. Arkansas, Maryland, UNLV and even UCLA all won titles only to miss the tourney a few years later.
The landscape of college basketball has changed. In 1988, when Sean Elliot finished his amazing junior season, there was on question he was coming back for his senior year. Center Anthony Cook was not talking to agents to see if he would be drafted. Now, after one season, Marcus Williams was thinking about going pro. Chase Budinger has a look at the big time right now too and coaches now know that it is silly to try and tell them not to take the money.
To play basketball? Yes, go to the draft. New NBA rules force players like Greg Oden to go to a college for a year and thank goodness, I'm a Buckeye fan.
The NBA is a dying league because they are telling 18 year old men that they can't work for them. Rules like that lead to other rules that weaken the infrastructure of organizations.
Lute Olson is in a great place in his life. That is the other problem I see with his teams since 2001: there is a level of apathy that is hard for fans to watch. There has been a lot of discussion in Tucson about the level of interest this Wildcat team had for the game. They did nothing against Purdue to show that they were in a one and done tournament. They were times that I watched Purdue simply want the game more. It didn't make me mad though. I haven't been mad since 1997 when Lute gave us a title. They are so hard to come by and we may never gat another one but we will always have that magical run in 1997.
I missed seeing Wayne Womack diving into the tables to save the ball. I missed seeing Joe McLean and Gene Edgerson come into the game wearing knee pads because the victory meant they might have to throw their body around. I missed Ed Stokes setting a mid-court pick that floored an opposing point guard.
The only way to become hungry like that again is to play better defense, look at UCLA in the Lavin era and now in the Howland era.
The other alternative is to fall apart and re-build. The problem with that is that Lute is too good of a coach. We will win 20 next year and make a second round exit if we are lucky.
It is the cycle of sports. A prolonged level of success, if you are lucky will lead to a prolonged level of mediocrity and will usually bottom out for a prolonged period before the whole thing rolls over again.
