Chris Dufresne: ‘Cool Hand Lute’ hangs ‘em up
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Arizona basketball Coach Lute Olson’s abrupt retirement on Thursday at age 74 proved once again that, in life, there are few clean endings.
The last year of Olson’s brilliant tenure was, at times, hard to watch. A bitter divorce, health concerns, Olson taking a leave of absence and then, upon his return last spring, ousting interim Coach Kevin O’Neill.
You call that an exit strategy?
Olson probably never should have attempted a return this season, but sometimes the end hits you before you have time to script it.
I’ve always contended Arizona basketball was never the same, and Olson was never the same, after that crushing regional finals loss, in Chicago, to No. 1 Illinois in March 2005. Arizona blew a 15-point lead in the final minutes and lost, 90-89, in overtime.
How did a Hall of Fame coach let that happen?
One of the greatest potential wins of Olson’s career turned into one of his ugliest defeats. The next year, when asked by reporters how often he thought of the Illinois game, Olson would mockingly say only three or four times a day.
I had the privilege to witness Olson at his hoops happiest, during Arizona’s amazing 1997 run to the NCAA title. That Arizona team finished fifth in the Pac-10, yet upset three top-seeded schools en route to a title-game win, against Kentucky, in Indianapolis.
What a ride. I’ll never forget the night in Birmingham when Arizona stunned No. 1 Kansas, considered to be Roy Williams’ best team. It was loaded with Jacque Vaughn, Raef LaFrentz and Scot Pollard, yet a skinny 18-year-old kid named Mike Bibby iced the game with two free throws with 18 seconds left.
Arizona went on to beat Providence, in the regional finals, blowing a 10-point lead in the final minutes before prevailing in overtime. And then it was off to the Final Four, where Arizona pushed aside two college basketball nobodies: North Carolina and Kentucky.
Those Arizona kids -- Bibby, Miles Simon, A.J. Bramlett, Eugene Edgerson, Michael Dickerson, Jason Terry -- knew no fear. The night before beating North Carolina, Arizona players could be found at a downtown Italian restaurant in Indianapolis, hooking each other’s noses with calamari rings.
It wouldn’t get any better for Arizona or for Olson, still stung by a first-round 1993 tournament loss to No. 15 Santa Clara, and still never fully embraced by many in the East Coast media who found him aloof.
‘I’ll go to my grave with some people talking about losses,’ Olson said after the Kentucky win. ‘I feel badly for them.’
Here was my gamer lead on Arizona’s title-clinching win over Kentucky:
INDIANAPOLIS--They were a fifth-place team and a No. 4 seed with a supposedly third-rate coach that lost their last two games entering the tournament.
How the Arizona Wildcats counted to No.1 after all that is a story Coach Lute Olson will be telling the grandchildren ...
He has plenty of time now.
-- Chris Dufresne
