Rick-Pitino

One more day, or three more weeks.

NCAA tournament time has arrived again for another University of Louisville basketball team, with the prospects of a quick ignominious out or another fabulous run. Only one team can win the championship, everybody else goes home broken and deflated.

Memories from past tournaments linger, from hoisting up that first national championship trophy in Market Square Arena in Indianapolis in 1980 to Reunion Arena in Dallas in 1986 to the a third national championship last season at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

Between those momentous occasions, however, was the U.S. Reed shot from 49 feet at the last second to give Arkansas a 72-71 win over the Cardinals in 1981. That UofL team was the defending champion but lost seven of its first nine games before ending the regular season with a 15-game winning streak. One bad game, one lucky shot, and it was all over in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

In 1983, UofL entered the NCAA tournament with a glossy 29-3 record. The same year of the Dream Game, Louisville defeating Kentucky 80-68 in a memorable overtime game in the regional final in Knoxville, only to lose 91-84 to Houston and Phi Slamma Jamma in a dunk-infested Final Four game the next week in New Mexico.

Since 1979, the only team to win the NCAA tournament as a No. 4 regional seed was the University of Arizona in 1997. Yet at Las Vegas sports books, Louisville (29-5) and Michigan State (26-8) are among the favorites to win the championship. Only top-ranked University of Florida has better odds.

The odds makers have a lot of respect for Rick Pitino.  No one has a better understand of the game, with the ability to make adjustments over the course of a season to not only conceal his team’s weaknesses but to turn them into assets, with continuous fine tuning.

He demands and expects continuous improvement from his players, instilling confidence along the way, the players embracing sometimes impossible goals, wanting to exceed his high expectations, the majority of them succeeding more often than not.

A second consecutive national championship would be an incredible accomplishment, ensuring that the Louisville brand will never again be denied when elite college basketball traditions are debated.

Anything is possible. I like our chances with the current edition.

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By Charlie Springer

Charlie Springer is a former Louisville editor and sportswriter, a public affairs consultant, a UofL grad and longtime fan.