Former Cardinal Junior Bridgeman eulogizes Coach Denny Crum
Former U of L basketball player Junior Bridgeman eulogized his former coach and mentor Denny Crum during funeral services at Southeast Christian Church on Monday morning. May 15, 2023
Jeff Faughender, Louisville Courier Journal
When one reflects on Louisville basketball‘s most memorable wins against the SEC, it’s easy to focus on the Cardinals’ victories over archrival Kentucky.
The “Dream Game” in 1983, Edgar Sosa’s 25-foot dagger in 2009 — they’re all standout moments for one of the sport’s 15 winningest programs. But it has had others against the rest of the league that stand the test of time.
First-year coach Pat Kelsey will try to notch another when U of L hosts Ole Miss in the SEC/ACC Challenge. Tipoff is scheduled for 9 p.m. Tuesday at the KFC Yum! Center.
After its 22-point beatdown at the hands of then-No. 12 Tennessee in Game 2 of the 2024-25 season, Louisville enters this matchup with the Rebels on a four-game losing streak vs. the SEC. Its last win over a conference member came against Mississippi State, 72-58, on Nov. 25, 2021, in the Baha Mar Hoops Bahamas Championship tournament.
As it stands, the Cards are 93-83 all time against the expended league’s 16 programs.
Here’s a look back at five of their biggest wins against those that aren’t their archrival:
After opening the 1980 NCAA Tournament with back-to-back overtime wins against No. 7-seeded Kansas State and No. 6 Texas A&M, it looked as if No. 2 Louisville was going to run out of gas against top-seeded LSU in Houston.
With 4:30 to play in the first half, the Tigers had a 29-21 advantage; and All-American Darrell Griffith was on the Cards’ bench with three fouls. “The dream was dying,” former Courier Journal reporter Mike Sullivan wrote.
“But then something happened,” he continued. “LSU sneezed, slipped or mugged for the camera. Suddenly, U of L was off the cliff’s edge, back on its feet and scoring the last 10 points of the first half.”
Louisville rode that momentum to a dominant 86-66 victory over the SEC Tournament champions, punching its ticket to the Final Four in Indianapolis. Griffith, who was named the Midwest Regional’s Most Outstanding Player, finished with a team-high 17 points — 13 of which came during the second half; while Derek Smith and Rodney McCray both chipped in double-doubles.
“There’s something about this team — I’ve said it all year, but I can’t put my finger on it,” Crum said afterward. “Here we are 31-3, and I still can’t believe it. They love each other; they play hard and play together; and they refuse to quit. Adversity doesn’t bother them.”
Despite reminders from Piedmont Airlines that the team wouldn’t arrive until 3:30 a.m., Cards fans showed up to greet them at the airport as early as seven hours in advance. A week later, U of L took down UCLA to bring home its first national championship.
Had Scooter McCray taken any longer, the “Dream Game” would have been just that — a dream.
No. 3-seeded Kentucky held up its end of the bargain first, beating cross-state rival No. 2 Indiana, 64-59, to reach the Mideast Regional final in Knoxville, Tennessee. Then, No. 1 Louisville took the same court against No. 4 Arkansas and fell behind 35-19 in the first half. The Cards pecked away until the score was tied at 63 with 37 seconds on the clock.
Crum elected to have his team hold the ball until only 13 seconds remained, then called a timeout to set up a play for Milt Wagner. Wagner got off a fallaway jump shot but missed; and, in the ensuing scrum under the basket, the ball fell into McCray’s hands. His first game-winning attempt was no good, but he got his own rebound and snuck in a bank shot that narrowly beat the buzzer — 65-63, U of L. Dream on.
“I’m glad Milt missed that jumper,” Crum said. “No time for a 50-footer that way. Maybe now I won’t see that shot in my sleep.”
Lancaster Gordon led the Cards in scoring against the Razorbacks with 19 points and, after missing a go-ahead free throw, forced the traveling violation that set up the game-winning final possession. McCray finished with 17 points.
Louisville, of course, would go on to beat UK in their first matchup since 1959 — an 80-68 overtime thriller that both sent it to a second consecutive Final Four and reignited its rivalry series with the Wildcats. The tournament run ended, however, with a 94-81 loss Houston in the national semifinal round.
Would there be a 1986 national championship banner hanging in the Yum! Center if Crum hadn’t dialed up a 1-1-3 zone defense, then a 2-3, with No. 2 Louisville trailing No. 8 Auburn entering the final 10 minutes of their Elite Eight matchup in Houston?
We’ll never know, but it was certainly for the best he did. The Cards seized control of the game, then gradually built up enough cushion to survive crunch time.
“We were just trying to change the tempo and (hoping) they’d make a few mistakes,” Crum said after pulling out an 84-76 victory. “We’re not a great zone team; we hardly ever practice it.”
“You learn that in high school,” added Wagner, who was one of five U of L players to break double digits with 16 points. “We don’t like to play it, but it doesn’t take that much to know what spots to cover.”
Herbert Crook led the Cards with a 20-point, 11-rebound double-double. Pervis Ellison added 15 and 10, respectively, and came up with a crucial block leading to a fast-break basket from Jeff Hall that made it a two-possession game with less than two minutes to play.
“There’s nothing like being in the Final Four,” Hall said. “It really makes you feel good that you can accomplish something like this. We need to enjoy this and not worry right away about who we’ve got to play next.”
After beating Auburn, U of L drew No. 11-seeded LSU, fresh off an Elite Eight upset of top-seeded Kentucky, in the national semifinals and won that game, 88-77. Then, the Cards took down No. 1 Duke in Dallas, 72-69, to claim their second championship in six years.
Louisville has had other thrilling regular-season wins against current SEC members. A few honorable mentions:
- Dec. 21, 1991: a 93-92 road victory over LSU on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer from Keith LeGree.
- Dec. 21, 1996: a 91-88 overtime win over No. 19 Arkansas — at the time, only the Razorbacks’ sixth loss in their previous 54 games at Bud Walton Arena.
- Jan. 19, 1997: an 85-78 overtime road victory over No. 23 Texas, set up by a game-tying 3 from Eric Johnson at the horn.
- Dec. 2, 2011: a 62-60 overtime win at the Yum! Center over No. 20 Vanderbilt in the Big East/SEC Challenge, thanks to a go-ahead layup from Peyton Siva with 1.4 seconds remaining in the extra period.
The Cards’ improbable comeback against Tennessee in Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino‘s first season takes the cake, however.
Reece Gaines still remembers watching fans file out of Freedom Hall that night. U of L trailed the Volunteers 70-64 with 36.5 seconds to play in regulation; and he was playing “awful.” But that changed in the blink of an eye.
Gaines started the rally by banking in a deep 3. Erik Brown forced a steal on UT’s ensuing inbound pass, which led to Bryant Northern’s first triple of the game tying the score at 70. Marcus Haislip netted the Vols’ go-ahead layup with 7.8 seconds remaining; then Gaines took on all five of their defenders and called game — despite Pitino pleas for him to make a pass — with another 3, this one from the top of the key with only 1.8 seconds on the clock.
Tennessee had a chance to win it as time expired, after Ron Slay’s baseline inbound pass hitting Haislip on a dime roughly 8 feet from the basket, but his attempt at a turnaround bank shot rolled off the rim. Hysteria ensued; some of the fans who were on their way out came rushing back in.
“The whole gym was vibrating,” Gaines said during a recent interview with The Courier Journal. “You could feel the energy.
“It felt the way it looked, like we just accomplished a miracle.”
“Up from ashes in Phoenix,” read the front page of The Courier Journal’s sports section on March 25, 2012.
Trailing seventh-seeded Florida by 11 with eight minutes and change remaining, No. 4 Louisville closed on an 18-3 run to win, 72-68, and snap a seven-year Final Four drought.
A technical foul against Pitino and an unlikely pep talk from Kyle Kuric provided the sparks.
“Everybody was screaming and complaining, like, ‘What’s going on?'” Kuric recalled afterward. “We huddled everybody up, and I said, ‘Everything is going against us; things aren’t going our way; so how are we going to handle it? Are we going to roll over, or are we going to come back?'”
Freshman Chane Behanan, who was named the Most Outstanding Player of the West Regional, scored nine points during the Cards’ decisive run and finished with 17 on 7-for-10 shooting. Sophomore Russ Smith tallied a team-high 19 points off the bench — and had to assume point guard duties when Siva fouled out with 3:58 to play.
“I don’t know how we won that game, to be honest with you,” Behanan said. “That just shows the heart we have — and a little bit of luck.”
U of L and top-seeded UK met for Round 2 of the “Dream Game” in the Final Four. The Cats won, 69-61, on their way to a national championship, but Louisville was the last team standing in March Madness a year later.
Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
