His team lingers at the bottom of the Top 25, sitting there at a very pedestrian No. 19, and earlier this season it was upset by modestly talented Purdue. But don’t be fooled. Like Chucky, Freddy Krueger and all the other stalkers in fright-night movies, Rick Pitino has been plotting his return and is now ready to re-emerge on the national stage.
He will do it this time with Louisville, the team he took over before last season and this season has driven to an 8-1 record. His Cardinals are led by 6-foot-6-inch senior guard Reece Gaines, a potential All-American, and now include the inside presence of 6-10 senior Marvin Stone, a Kentucky transfer who became eligible just before Christmas.
Even more significant, Louisville has a half-dozen juniors and seniors in its rotation.
“When you have that many juniors and seniors in college basketball, you’re pretty good,” explained Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins. “There’s a lot to be said for that. There’s not that many who can play.”
Huggins proceeded to list Pitino’s veterans:
Gaines? “He would have been a late-first-round choice [in the last NBA draft],” Huggins said.
Stone? “Rick thinks he’s a first-round pick.”
What about Luke Whitehead, a 6-7 junior forward, Ellis Myles, a 6-8 junior forward, and Bryant Northern, a 6-foot junior guard? Huggins said each “has played forever.”
And then there’s 6-5 swingman Erik Brown, a fifth-year senior.
“I think Rick’s got more players than anyone else,” Huggins said.
Charlotte coach Bobby Lutz, whose 49ers play host to Louisville on Wednesday, agrees.
“As competent as young guys are, when it comes to knowing what goes into winning and losing, upperclassmen have a better feel,” he said. “That doesn’t mean young guys aren’t trying and that doesn’t mean there aren’t young guys who aren’t exceptional. But you have an advantage when you have upperclassmen who know it’s not just making a basket, but doing the little things too.”As for Pitino, he believes that “experience is invaluable in college basketball. It’s just knowing the system you run. Knowing what not to do as well as what to do. Knowing what the road is all about. Knowing what goes into being a winner.”
A reality check: It has been well documented that this is the Year of the Kid, with freshmen playing major roles everywhere from Illinois to points north, south, east and west. But November and December are one season. Quite another is the conference season just opening, and the challenges it brings.
“It will be interesting to see how [the kids] hold up,” said North Carolina coach Matt Doherty, whose Tar Heels enjoyed some early success behind freshmen Raymond Felton, Rashad McCants and Sean May, who is now injured. “Freshmen hit a wall sometimes, get frustrated sometimes, tire quicker, don’t always know how to deal with the pace of college basketball. I think the ones surrounded by upperclassmen hold up better.”
Doherty points to Duke freshman guard J.J. Redick, who is surrounded by junior guard Chris Duhon, senior center Casey Sanders and senior forward Dahntay Jones.
“I think that’s a big advantage to a freshman,” Doherty said.
Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt, who starts freshmen Jarrett Jack at point guard and Chris Bosh at forward, thinks the freshmen will improve.
“If you look around at the coaches in [the ACC], we have some great coaches and they’ll develop them, help them maintain their intensity level,” he said. “That’s what it all comes down to. As freshmen, they don’t have an appreciation for the consistency of the intensity level that you need.”
Looking for a home: As a freshman at Arizona last season, former Crane star Will Bynum averaged 6.4 points and 18.8 minutes a game. This year, as a sophomore, the guard’s numbers were similar (7.8 and 16.6). But that was not enough for him, and so he left the Wildcats with his next stop undetermined.
“I thought he’d been making a lot of progress, but he wasn’t getting the amount of time on the court that he felt he needed to get to where he wanted to go,” Arizona coach Lute Olson said. “He’s a great kid. He worked very, very hard in practice situations. But he has [senior and four-year starter Jason] Gardner ahead of him and [sophomore] Salim Stoudamire, who was our conference’s freshman of the year a year ago and is our best perimeter shooter and most consistent shooter and one of our best defenders. So he had challenges in both those spots.”
Quickly noted: Lutz, when discussing the value of experience, noted this telling fact. In three of his four years at Charlotte, he started two or three seniors and the team went to the NCAA tournament. In the other year, he started one senior and went to the NIT. . . . No. 16 Creighton visits Bradley on Wednesday and Illinois State on Saturday, no easy task even though the Bluejays won at both places last season. Why? That was the first time in their history they managed that. . . . Speaking of the Braves. They are 0-5 against Top 25 teams at Carver Arena, their current home. And they have not beaten a Top 25 team at home since they topped No. 8 Tulsa in overtime in the final regular-season game at their old Robertson Memorial Field House. It was played, by the way, on Feb. 27, 1982.
And finally: Southern Miss coach James Green, on the demands of travel: “They always say boys can win at home, but it takes men to win on the road.”
STATS & STUFF
WHO’S HOT
Georgia has not only won eight straight for the first time since December 1996 and rejoined the rankings at No. 20, it also hit 61 percent of its three-point attempts in victories last week over Pitt and LSU. And it has defeated its last six opponents by the average score of 91-71. And, during its streak, it has shot 53 percent from the field overall.
WHO’S NO. 1?
Here’s a look at the top 10 teams on CollegeRPI.com and where they rank in the Associated Press and USA Today/ESPN polls:
RANK, TEAM AP USA
1. Arizona 2 2
2. Georgia 20 24
3. Notre Dame 5 6
4. Duke 1 1
5. Missouri 13 13
6. St. Joseph’s NR NR
7. Indiana 15 15
8. Alabama 4 4
9. Louisville 19 25
10. Texas 8 7
%%
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NUMEROLOGY
Notre Dame was defeated on Monday by Pitt, which was ranked No. 44 in the RPI. And Missouri was defeated last month by Illinois, which was ranked No. 39.
Marquette, No. 24 in the latest AP poll, was No. 51 in the RPI and Maryland, No. 21 in the AP, was No. 54. DePaul, unranked by the AP, was No. 38 in the RPI and ahead of Pitt and Illinois, Marquette and Maryland, each of whom is in the AP Top 25.
HOT HANDS
52
The overall shooting percentage of No. 16 Creighton, including 42 percent from three-point range. The 11-1 Bluejays have shot 50 percent or better in 14 of 24 halves and in 9 of 12 games.
LINE OF THE WEEK
In UCLA’s victory Saturday at Washington State, Bruins forward Jason Kapono was 14-of-19 overall (.737), 9-of-10 on his three-point attempts (.900) and 7-of-7 from the free-throw line. His total, 44 points, was the fifth-best single-game performance in school history, and the best by any Bruin not named Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).
GAMES TO WATCH
Georgia at Florida
Saturday, 2 p.m.
Quick look: Early showdown in the SEC.
Wake Forest at Duke
Sunday, 5:30 p.m.
Quick look: Both still undefeated.
Oklahoma at Oklahoma State
Monday, 8 p.m., ESPN
Quick look: Toss out the record books.
Skip Myslenski.
