It’s a Lou-Lou: Louisiana St. vs. Louisville

Louisiana State Coach Dale Brown had that gleam in his eye and that preachy tone in his voice. He had the floor and wasn’t about to pause for breath to let someone else have it.

He had been asked about his team’s Cinderella role in this NCAA Final Four tournament, and he was off:

“Maybe it’s more like David and Goliath,” he said. “Cinderella was a fairy tale. It wasn’t real. But David and Goliath is not a Greek myth, it’s a Biblical truth.

“Our team earned its way here with heart, guts, love and desire.

“That might sound dippy or phony or artificial or tinselly, but we believe it. We believe in the magic. We have it.”

LSU earned its way to the Final Four with a series of upsets that has left it matched against Louisville in a semifinal game starting at 12:30 p.m. (PST) today.

LSU, which started the NCAA tournament as the 11th-seeded team in the Southeast Regional, is the only team ever seeded so low to make it so far. But that gets Brown going on his sermon about odds.

“Odds are not what made this country great,” he said. “The people at Donner Pass didn’t have very good odds, but they made it.”

Well, some of them made it.

LSU has indeed overcome bizarre adversity this season. If the Tigers, with a record of 26-11, were to upset Louisville, the West Regional winner with a record of 30-7 and a current 15-game winning streak, it would be a fitting end to the LSU season.

What an adventure this basketball season has been.

There was all the excitement over 7-foot center Tito Horford, who was gone before he played one game. There was the knee injury to 7-foot center Zoran Jovanovich in a pickup game with his roommate, backup off-guard Ricky Blanton, who has become LSU’s 6-6 center. There was the furor over center Nikita Wilson and a couple of others becoming academically ineligible.

There was an NCAA inquiry over the recruiting of John Williams that prompted Brown to suggest that the NCAA attach him to a lie detector before a roomful of witnesses, and there was a real brouhaha over the athletic director’s office being bugged.

There was a chicken-pox epidemic that caused the cancellation of a couple of games.

LSU lost 10 of its last 17 games and is now playing with a depleted squad made up of 11 players--nine of whom are now guards or have been guards.

Williams, a 6-8 sophomore forward from Crenshaw High School, is the only big man left on a squad that started out as one of the biggest ever to play college basketball.

Woefully outmanned by the end of January, Brown abandoned the zone press and went to what he calls the “freak” defense.

Brown directs constant switches from a man-to-man to a variety of zones and even to some combinations of man-to-man and zone.

It has worked well enough to get LSU past Purdue, Memphis State, Georgia Tech and Kentucky.

But will it worked against Louisville?

Louisville Coach Denny Crum can actually keep a straight face while he discusses the freak defense, reasoning: “I didn’t name it.”

Crum said: “It’s not really any different from a lot of other defenses we’ve seen, they just change it more often. It’s man-to-man and zones, box-and-one, diamond-and-two. Everything.

“They try to keep you off-balance and off-stride with the changes.

“There’s nothing wrong with the strategy, but I hope it won’t work against us because of our balance.”

LSU leans heavily on Williams for scoring and rebounding, since he is averaging 17.9 points and 8.4 rebounds a game, but Louisville has all five starters averaging in double figures and all three front-line players within one rebound a game of having identical rebounding totals.

Louisville has a better field-goal percentage and better rebounding totals. Both teams like to draw fouls and are very good at making free throws.

LSU’s edge in the last few upsets has been in the scrapping areas--more steals, fewer turnovers.

But that’s a pretty iffy category. A couple of wrong bounces and the magic may not be there.

That’s why LSU guard Derrick Taylor downplays the magic that Brown and most of the LSU players keep talking about. Taylor said: “Magic can maybe happen once. I think it’s more a question of we’re finally peaking. Magic sounds like luck.”

Crum doesn’t go along with the idea that the Tigers have any mystical, magical charm. He figures that any team in the Final Four must be pretty good.

“I don’t like to hear that people think LSU has no chance to beat us,” he said. “Maybe that’s why they’re here, because other teams along the way didn’t think they had a chance”.

COACHING RECORDS

DALE BROWN, Louisiana State

Season School W L Pct. 1972-73 Louisiana St. 14 10 .583 1973-74 Louisiana St. 12 14 .462 1974-75 Louisiana St. 10 16 .385 1975-76 Louisiana St. 12 14 .462 1976-77 Louisiana St. 15 12 .556 1977-78 Louisiana St. 18 9 .667 1978-79 Louisiana St. 23 6 .793 1979-80 Louisiana St. 26 6 .813 1980-81 Louisiana St. 31 5 .861 1981-82 Louisiana St. 14 14 .500 1982-83 Louisiana St. 19 13 .594 1983-84 Louisiana St. 18 11 .621 1984-85 Louisiana St. 19 10 .655 1985-86 Louisiana St. 26 11 .703 Totals 257 151 .630

DENNY CRUM, Louisville

Season School W L Pct. 1971-72 Louisville 26 5 .838 1972-73 Louisville 23 7 .766 1973-74 Louisville 21 7 .750 1974-75 Louisville 28 3 .903 1975-76 Louisville 20 8 .714 1976-77 Louisville 21 7 .750 1977-78 Louisville 23 7 .766 1978-79 Louisville 24 8 .750 1979-80 Louisville 33 3 .917 1980-81 Louisville 21 9 .700 1981-82 Louisville 23 10 .697 1982-83 Louisville 32 4 .889 1983-84 Louisville 24 11 .686 1984-85 Louisville 19 18 .514 1985-86 Louisville 30 7 .811 Totals 368 114 .763

ROSTERS LOUISIANA STATE

No Player Pos Yr Ht Wt 10 Derrick Taylor G Sr 6-0 186 11 Anthony Wilson G Jr 6-4 197 15 Ocie Conley G So 6-2 187 20 Neboisha Bukmrvch G So 6-4 174 24 John Williams F So 6-8 240 30 Bernrd Woodside G-F So 6-6 200 31 Oliver Brown G-F Jr 6-6 198 33 Ricky Blanton G So 6-6 212 43 Jose Vargas C So 6-9 225 44 Don Redden G-F Sr 6-6 217

LOUISVILLE

No Player Pos Yr Ht Wt 00 Robbie Valentine F Sr 6-6 200 10 Mark McSwain F Jr 6-7 220 15 Kevin Walls G Fr 6-1 170 20 Milt Wagner G Sr 6-5 185 21 Kenny Payne F Fr 6-7 195 23 Chris West G Jr 6-3 175 24 Will Olliges G So 6-9 205 25 David Robinson F Fr 6-8 190 33 Avery Marshall F-C Fr 6-7 210 34 Mike Abram G-F So 6-4 195 41 Herbert Crook F So 6-7 190 42 Jeff Hall G Sr 6-4 180 43 Pervis Ellison F-C Fr 6-9 195 44 Tony Kimbro F Fr 6-7 190 55 Billy Thompson F Sr 6-7 195

1985-86 RESULTS LOUISIANA STATE (26-11)

W 84 Montana State 59 W 70 at Washington 61 W 89 at BYU Hawaii 71 W 101 at Hawaii Pacific 89 W 77 at Hawaii Loa 68 W 70 at Hawaii Hilo 61 W 87 Hardin-Simmons 71 W 79 at Lamar 59 W 72 at Texas 65 W 82 *SE Louisiana 61 W 91 *Southern U 83 W 82 Oral Roberts 64 W 85 Georgia 73 W 90 Mississippi State 84 L 67 at Alabama 83 L 77 at Tennessee 88 W 86 Mississippi 68 W 84 Vanderbilt 67 L 65 at Florida 74 L 52 Kentucky 54 L 76 at Georgia 92 L 72 at Georgetown 74 W 63 at Auburn 61 W 68 at Mississippi State 62 L 71 Alabama 80 W 75 Tennessee 50 L 57 at Mississippi 58 W 74 at Vanderbilt 68 W 80 Florida 69 L 86 Auburn 92 L 57 at Kentucky 68

SEC Tournament

W 72 Florida 66 L 58 Kentucky 61

NCAA Tournament

W 94 Purdue (2 OT) 87 W 83 Memphis State 81 W 70 Georgia Tech 64 W 59 Kentucky 57

* Louisiana Invitational

LOUISVILLE (30-7)

W 81 *Miami, Ohio 65 W 80 *Tulsa 74 L 78 *Kansas 83 L 79 *St. John’s 86 W 77 Purdue 58 W 88 Iona 75 W 73 Western Kentucky 70 W 65 Indiana 63 L 64 at Kentucky 69 W 94 Wyoming 62 W 86 Eastern Kentucky 55 L 71 at Memphis State 73 W 59 at So. Mississippi 54 W 85 at Florida State 64 W 83 Syracuse 73 L 82 Cincinnati 84 L 69 at Kansas 71 W 72 La Salle 60 W 91 UCLA 72 W 74 South Carolina 72 W 103 Virginia Tech 68 L 64 at North Carolina State 76 W 93 at Virginia Tech 83 W 74 at Cincinnati 58 W 72 at DePaul 53 W 83 Southern Mississippi 74 W 89 Florida State 67 W 76 Houston 59 W 66 South Alabama 55 W 65 at South Carolina 63 W 70 Memphis State 69

Metro Tournament

W 86 Cincinnati 65 W 88 Memphis State 79

NCAA Tournament

W 93 Drexel 73 W 82 Bradley 68 W 94 North Carolina 79 W 84 Auburn 76

* Big Apple NIT

STATISTICS LOUISIANA STATE

Player FG% FT% Reb Asts Pts Williams .501 .779 8.4 3.2 17.9 Taylor .507 .878 1.7 3.8 13.7 N.Wilson .545 .789 6.0 0.9 13.1 Redden .512 .851 4.7 2.7 12.7 A.Wilson .486 .878 2.9 1.3 9.5 Blanton .591 .662 4.8 0.9 6.2 Jovanovich .471 .667 2.8 0.0 4.2 Vargas .465 .515 2.6 0.1 3.1 Brown .487 .469 2.1 1.3 2.5 Woodside .439 .500 0.8 0.5 1.6 Bukumirovich .382 .706 0.3 1.1 1.4 Conley .308 .600 0.5 0.2 1.1 Carrier 1.00 1.00 0.0 0.0 1.0 E.Wilson .250 .692 0.0 0.5 0.9 LSU .504 .753 34.0 15.2 75.7 Opponents .491 .702 31.8 14.4 70.0

LOUISVILLE

Player FG% FT% Reb Asts Pts Thompson .562 .729 7.9 3.9 14.8 Wagner .498 .851 3.1 4.0 14.7 Ellison .551 .677 7.9 2.1 12.8 Crook .523 .704 6.1 2.0 11.5 Hall .530 .687 1.8 3.0 10.3 Kimbro .582 .571 2.6 1.3 5.6 Payne .437 .773 1.7 0.3 3.6 McSwain .569 .720 2.8 0.8 3.6 Walls .485 .750 0.5 0.6 2.3 Abram .522 .385 1.1 0.8 1.7 Valentine .529 .500 0.6 0.3 1.3 West .500 .500 0.4 0.5 0.9 Olliges .400 1.000 0.6 0.2 0.5 Robinson .333 .000 1.2 0.0 0.4 Marshall .000 .000 1.0 0.0 0.0 Louisville .529 .739 36.9 18.4 79.4 Opponents .458 .676 31.2 14.0 68.9