Who's Lute Olson? And who's God?
Note to thread: This is remedial reading for our thread-head and UA alum. All others, feel free to ignore.
Tucson, Arizona Tuesday, 12 March 2002
Greg Hansen
Something to scream about
Despite 18 straight NCAAs, Olson overlooked
All these years and what do we really know about Lute Olson?
Could you have guessed that his favorite book, all-time division, is Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising? Or that his movie of choice is Sound of Music?
Did you know that his son Steve is a chef who was educated at Cordon Bleu in Paris? Do you know that his grandson Matt Brase is a sweet passer and key reserve on the region champion Central Arizona College basketball team bound for the NJCAA tournament?
Lute's sports idol as a kid? Ted Williams.
Musical preference? Sometimes it's Vince Gill.
Arizona's basketball coach manages to live an amazingly private life in this rather public setting. That's good; a yen for privacy is part of the reason he fled Iowa in 1983. (Well, that and Iowa's annual days below freezing statistics.)
In the strictest terms, what we know most about Olson are his numbers: 18 straight NCAA tournament appearances; nine Pac-10 championships; five Final Fours, four as Arizona coach.
If ever there was a year Olson's streak of NCAA tournament appearances was going to end, this was the year. Instead, the Wildcats enter the NCAAs ranked No. 7 in the final Associated Poll of the season. If he coached in Chicago or New York or L.A., he'd be the national Coach of the Year.
Yet I don't think it surprised anybody that the Wildcats won 22 games. Olson has a bad year as often as Robert Redford.
Typically, the UA coach deflects the attention when asked about the significance of 18 straight tournament seasons.
"Maybe we'll start with 10 extra points on the scoreboard,'' he said Monday, deadpan. "That's as much good as it does you.''
Olson could have chosen to spend Selection Sunday on any of the celebrity-seeking sports-news TV programs that filled their guest slots with visible coaches. CBS trotted out Gary Williams, Bob Huggins, Roy Williams, Jim Boeheim, Tubby Smith and Mike Krzyzewski.
But Olson does not solicit attention, and CBS did not request his presence, which, I'm guessing, was OK with him. His only national media spot on Sunday was an obscure late-night interview on ESPN radio with Bob Valvano. They squeezed Olson in between coaches from Hampton and Winthrop.
I ask: How can CBS, the network of the NCAA tournament, have a Selection Sunday coaches panel without Lute Olson?
Olson's streak of 18 tournaments is five more than Roy Williams, seven more than Huggins, nine more than Gary Williams, 11 more than Krzyzewski and Smith, and 13 more than Boeheim.
A tournament streak is not the only gauge for coaching excellence, but it is the best one.
Hall of Fame coach John Chaney of Temple didn't qualify for the tournament this year. Ex-Louisville coach Denny Crum, also in the Hall of Fame, didn't make the tournament in 1985, 1987, 1991, 1998.
Rick Majerus continues to be a hot item, yet his longest streak of consecutive NCAA tournaments is six.
The briefest hint Olson offers as to the difficulty of an Arizona coach qualifying for 18 straight NCAA tournaments is this:
"If you look at it, it's not like the UA is in a populated area with a lot of (top) players around."
He lost Luke Recker, perceived to be his best player, to his old school, Iowa. Arizona got better. Iowa didn't make it to the tournament.
What Olson has done here is almost beyond comprehension. Arizona's 18th straight NCAA appearance is second in history, trailing North Carolina's 27. Only North Carolina's Dean Smith (27) and Texas Tech's Bob Knight (25) have made more NCAA appearances than Olson (23.)
It's not like he's been coaching against a bunch of stiffs in Conference USA or the Big West. Olson's appearances have come while in small markets, rescuing losing programs in the Big Ten and Pac-10.
And CBS couldn't fit him in its Selection Sunday programming?
That's absurd.
What goes unspoken is that Olson had gone to five consecutive NCAA tournaments at Iowa, including the 1980 Final Four. Three years later he left for Tucson, and there's no reason to doubt that the Hawkeyes would now be celebrating their 24th successive NCAA appearance had he stayed.
Instead, the Hawkeyes are home again as the nation begins a month-long dance of madness.
Here's a little perspective: In the 19 years before Olson was hired at Iowa, the Hawkeyes appeared in a single NCAA tournament.
One. In the 18 years since Olson left, the Hawkeyes have failed to reach the NCAA tournament seven times.
He says he cannot remember what he did in that rare open week, March 10-17, 1984, when his first Arizona team did not qualify for the NCAA tournament. It is the only time in 24 years that Olson didn't spend Selection Sunday making preparations for a first-round game.
"We were probably scrambling like crazy to get a head start on recruiting,'' he said. "I hope I don't have any recollections of that in the near future.''
On that free week in 1984, Olson and his assistant coaches, Ricky Byrdsong and Ken Burmeister, began in earnest the plan to recruit Sean Elliott and Anthony Cook. Both signed with Arizona that fall and later became No. 1 draft picks in the NBA. Both played in four NCAA tournaments.
In total, 27 Arizona players have appeared in four NCAA tournaments for Olson. Next year, Ricky Anderson, Luke Walton and Jason Gardner will increase that number to 30.
At any place that isn't North Carolina, that's gotta be a record. |
