Jeff Greer|Louisville Courier Journal
This is the thirdof a three-part oral history series on the 1985-86 Louisville Cardinals, who won the school's second national championship and are celebrating the 30th anniversary of their title this week. For Part One, click here. For Part Two, click here.
In its sixth Final Four appearance since 1972and fourth since 1980, Louisville basketball had arrived on the national stage as a powerhouse. And in their 1986 run, the Cards topped eight top-20 teams en route to the Final Four, including an impressive 94-79 Sweet 16 victory over North Carolina, which had been ranked No. 1 in the country for 13 weeks that season.
But the biggest test for Denny Crum's team was still to come. If Louisville could get past upstart LSU, the lowest seed to everreach the Final Four then, the Cards would take onNo. 1 Dukein the final.
The 1985-86 Duke Blue Devils were coach Mike Krzyzewski's first great team. They set an NCAA record at the time for wins in a season, with 37, andSports Illustratedhad dubbed them "the team to beat" on its March Madness preview edition cover.
Read more of the 1986 Louisville basketballoral history series: PART ONE | PART TWO
Crum,his former players, LSU coach Dale Brown and ex-Duke players Jay Bilas and Tommy Amakerprovided an oral history of Louisville's Final Four and championship game wins, pieced together with archived articles from The Courier-Journal andthe New York Times.
For the second time in six years, Louisville was set to play LSU with something bigger at stake. The Cards beat LSUin the 1980 Elite 8 on the way to winning that title, and they met again with a title-game spot on the line. Years later, LSU coach Dale Brown joked that if it wasn't for Louisville, LSU might have won a national title. Crum quipped back, "We all have a cross to bear."
Dale Brown, LSU coach:We beat the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 seeds to get there. We beat some doggone good people to face Denny.We didn’t even know if we’d get into the NCAA Tournament.We even had a playoff to get to the SEC Tournament.They gota glass slipper from Tiffany's and had me kiss it when we got to the Final Four. They were truly Cinderella.
Jeff Hall, Louisville senior guard: We were very excited about going to the Final Four. We felt good. We were confident.We were injury free. We had a little luck on our side.We knew they were a good basketball team because they had beaten Kentucky in order to get to the Final Four, and Kentucky beat us.
LSU started fast and led by eight points at halftime, but the locker rooms at the breakwere very different.
Brown:I could tellLouisville was fresh. Denny keptpressuring with full-courtand half-court traps, three-quarter-court pressure. It wore us down.I knew we were running out of gas.
Denny Crum, Louisville coach:I told the guys, 'We just have to get these back one point at a time. Don’t try to be spectacular. We just have to do a better job at what we’re doing.' That’s what we did.
Louisville outscored LSU, 52-33, in the second half and won, 88-77. Forward Billy Thompson had 22 points and 10 rebounds, and Milt Wagner had 22 points and 11 assists. Freshman center Pervis Ellisonadded 11 points and 13 rebounds.
Hall:A lot of teams don’t play well in the Final Four because they’ve already reached theirgoal. Ifyouhave that attitude, you’re going to be one and done. We certainly were happy that we won the game, but our goal wasn’t to beat LSU –it was to win two games in Dallas.
The day between the Final Four and the national championship was criticalin the saga of the 1986 Louisville Cardinals. The New York Times had a glowing feature about Duke's players, their academic feats and their pristine private-school campus. Newspapers were suggesting that Duke, which had won 21 consecutive games, could become one of the greatest champions in college basketball history.
Jay Bilas, Duke senior forward:That was kind of heady stuff. You had that, plus all the press stuff on Sunday. We were preparing for Louisville. Wewatched film and we were going, 'This is one of the best teams we’ve played.'
Hall:Everybodywas already handing Duke the trophy at the end and sayingLouisville was just happy to be there. The attitude of our team was, 'Let’s go out andlet our play speak for who wins the tournament and not let it be won in the newspaper.'
Milt Wagner, Louisville senior guard:That’s like fuel. We came into the game as underdogs, like we didn’t have a chance. We took it personally. We just said, 'OK, wait 'til the game starts.'
Duke started fast, taking a 31-23 lead. The Blue Devils led, 37-34, at halftime, and National Player of the Year Johnny Dawkins had 15 points. He scored seven more in the early stages of the second half, and Duke led by six. But that's when Crum made the defensive switch that ultimately turned the momentum of the game. Dawkins scored two points – two free throws – in the final 15:27.
Crum: We used a 1-3 zone and a chaser on Dawkins, and that really helped us.It was Jeff Hall. It wasn’t his job to necessarily guard him. It was his job to deny him from getting the ball, period.We took Dawkins out of the game. That was instrumental. We didn’t spend a lot of time in practice on it, but ironically, we did the same thing against Auburn with (Chuck) Person. It wasn’t something we ever used in the regular season.
Bilas:They took Dawkins away.We got good shots thatwe’d normally makeand didn’t.
With U of L up by apoint with45 seconds left, Hallair-balled a tough jump shot. Ellison, seeing the trajectory of Hall's shot, caught the air ball and flippedin the putback in traffic. With twoseconds left and no 3-point line yet in college hoops,Milt Wagner went to the free-throw line one more time to put the game out of reach.
CBS flashed a graphic on the screen showing Wagner's free-throw percentage in the last four minutes of games that season: 95.1. Brent Musberger, the play-by-play broadcaster for CBS, delivered a perfect setup for history:"He struggled all game long. He came down the stretch with four fouls. He kept himself in the game. Now, the man they call 'Ice' will try to show that he can live up to that nickname."
Crum:Miltrarely, if ever, missed a foul shot at the end of the game. For him, that was like shooting a layup. He was supposed to make them, and he did. He buried them.
Louisville won, 72-69, and Ellison compiled 25 points and 11 rebounds to win the Final Four's Most Outstanding Playeraward. As the buzzer sounded and the players rushed the court, Duke's Danny Ferry clotheslined Hall.
Crum:Jeff turned around and threw the ball at him. He did! Jeff had a temper, and he looked so nice and calm, and he was when he played, but he didn’t care how big Ferry was.
Bilas:To this day, people think it was me. It wasn’t. All I did was shake hands and walk off the floor. I swearI didn’t do anything.
Tony Kimbro, Louisville freshman forward:He’s lucky that that’s all Jeff did. (Laughs.) Jeff is a good guy, but he’s not to be played with. He’s the best guy in the world, and I thought he was going to kill me a few times.
Bilas:Back then, when you lost, you had to stay out there and watch the other team celebrate. All those guys are great guys. We congratulated them. You’re happy for those guys. ButI don’t care who it is, it’s not fun watching someone celebrate a championship you wanted to win.
Tommy Amaker, Duke junior guard:It was a gut-wrenching loss for us. In our minds, that was not the way the story was supposed to be written. I don’t think we ever thought we were going to lose.Johnny Dawkins was sitting on the bench with me crying.That was an opportunity of a lifetime that we missed, but they were great. Pervis was magnificent.
Crum:A friend who was also a coach (Bobby Knight) told me after thegamethat the best team didn’t win the championship this year. I said, 'The best team tonight did.'
U of L flew back to Louisville that night, and the next few days were chaos, culminating with a raucous celebration at Freedom Hall, where fans were so excited to see the Cards arriving that some climbed onto the roof of the team bus.
Crum: Everybody had a beer in their hand. They were everywhere. You couldn’t even let anybody off the bus. It was a mob.
Wagner:It was great, man. It was for the city of Louisville. That was my third time at the Final Four. We had to get that one.
Kimbro:Man, it was overwhelming. I didn’t know whether to be afraid or what. You can’t describe that feeling.We brought it back to the city.
