The Last Dance

Pete Carril, who always looks as if he’s falling apart while his team puts together masterpieces, was about to fly into pieces Saturday.

His young Princeton team had just pulled out an emotional overtime victory over Pennsylvania for his 11th Ivy League title, his players were celebrating in the locker room, and it all happened at neutral-site Lehigh, the school at which Carril began his college coaching career.

It was, Carril said at the time, “the happiest day of my life.”

Then, right on the spot, the rumpled 65-year-old Carril announced his retirement after his 29-year run as the crusty, emotional, thoughtful personification of the Ivy League hoop dream.

“It was a shock, just stunning,” said Sydney Johnson, Carril’s junior guard and captain of the 21-6 Tigers. “There were a lot of emotions--the thrill of beating Penn, and then just the sadness of seeing him go. But, in retrospect, he felt like it’s his time to leave.

“If you look back on it, everybody was happy. And he was finally happy with what he started so long ago. It was almost like a gift that we could give to him, that we fulfilled our potential for this year.”

Why then? Carril was asked. Why announce it here?

“Because I’m happy. I’m so damned happy,” Carril said. “Do you know when you’re really upset and you say things you don’t mean and they slip out? This is just the opposite. I’m so damn happy, I just want to say I’m retiring.”

Carril said he knew for about five months that his time had come, knew that he had lost some spark in games and at practice, knew that associate coach Bill Carmody would be a better man for the job, beginning next season.

“You have to realize, you have to know when you’ve had your day, when it’s your time,” Carill said Monday. “You must know all that, and there are a lot of signs that show up that indicate it. I look at [Kentucky’s] Rick Pitino on the bench and look at [Massachusetts Coach John] Calipari and some of these other guys, and that’s the way I used to look and behave.

“The players today seem to need more of an animated coach. I don’t see any coaches today sitting on the bench--hardly any of them. They’re all standing up.

“Nowadays, looking at guys like Tom Landry and Chuck Noll, Don Shula, guys who were so great and maybe in later years didn’t become so great. I wonder if they didn’t get a little tired. It’s time to say, ‘Let’s turn it over to a younger man.’ ”

So it goes for Carril, whose patient, methodical, distinctly low-octane Tigers have caused heaps of trouble for years.

Carril’s wind-the-clock-down teams have led the nation in scoring defense for eight consecutive seasons, and this year gave up only 51.6 points a game.

This is the man who coached another young Ivy League champion to the most remembered near-upset in recent history, the 50-49 East regional loss in 1989 to top-seeded Georgetown when Alonzo Mourning blocked shots by Bob Scrabis and Kit Mueller in the final seconds; the man who coached his teams to competitive first-round losses to Arkansas in 1990, Villanova in 1991 and Syracuse in 1992.

But Carril emphasizes that this Princeton team isn’t as talented as the one that almost toppled Georgetown.

“I’m sorry to say it isn’t,” Carril said. “We’re a little bit shorter, we’re not as strong physically. I don’t think we shoot as well as that team did. And it remains to be seen whether they can hold on to their guts as the game goes on and establish some kind of confidence level.”

After a three-year absence because of Penn’s upsurge, Princeton and Carril are back in the NCAA tournament one last time, gearing up for a first-round meeting with defending national champion UCLA on Thursday night at Indianapolis.

And it’s a matchup that doesn’t bother the Tiger players much at all.

“If you’re going to go, you might as well face somebody that’s going to test you,” Johnson said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, we don’t want to play Kentucky. But I think we’re going to test UCLA as much as they test us. They at least have to make some adjustments.

“I think the staples that Princeton is about--defense and execution--present problems to anyone in the country. If we played Kentucky, and were able to execute and stop people, we might make a little trouble for them too. I think they know that we minimize our mistakes, which forces them to maximize their offensive opportunities.”

In a nation full of basketball factories, the Carril system--a ball-control weave offense, sturdy defense and precision up and down the court--and the meticulous Carril coaching style have carved a unique place, and attracted some unique players.

Said John Thompson III, the son of the Georgetown coach, a player at Princeton in the mid-’80s and now an assistant coach, “When I was a high school senior going through the whole recruiting process, I remember my father being stand-offish. You know, ‘You make your decision.’ He didn’t want to let me know how he felt one way or another.

“When I told him, ‘Maybe I should go to Princeton,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell you one thing, if you go up there to play for that man and that program, you’re going to learn how to play basketball.’ ”

Bill Walton’s son, Nathan, has committed to play at Princeton next season, and Walton said Monday that he’s sorry his son won’t get a chance to play for Carril.

“It’s sad that he’s retiring, but he’s given his life to Princeton and you can’t ask for anything more than that,” Walton said. “I had the great privilege of playing for a coach in his prime and the end of his career with Coach [John Wooden]. . . . I was hoping for that same player-coach relationship for Nathan.

“I think it’s the job that Carril does as a basketball coach, as a leader, as a molder of young men.”

What will Carril do next? He hinted that he could end up as an NBA assistant next season, and reports suggest he will join the Portland Trail Blazers and Geoff Petrie, a former Tiger player who is a team executive.

Whatever he chooses, he will be long remembered at Princeton.

“I’m going to remember the intensity,” Johnson said. “When I was a freshman, I was just spooked the first week of practice. I’d never seen anything like it. Just yelling and screaming.

“And along with that is just the knowledge. Sometimes, he just simply out-coached people, and it’s a good feeling to be a part of that.”

Thompson, for his part, is sure that, as long as the echoes of Carril’s practice-time tirades sound at Princeton, Carril will be an influence.

“I think of when I first left here and was not coaching,” Thompson said. “You kind of expect him peeking over your shoulder out in the work force, so he will definitely always be around.”

*

UCLA vs. Princeton

What: Southeast Regional, first round.

When: Thursday

Where: Indianapolis

Starting time: 7:10 p.m.*

TV: Channel 2

Radio: XTRA (690)

Complete NCAA times: C5

* Approximate starting time. Game officially begins 30 minutes after previous game ends.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Long Run

Princeton’s Pete Carril, who is retiring after the NCAA tournament, ranks 18th all-time among major-college coaches in number of seasons at one school (minimum of 10 seasons at Division I level). Carril, in his 29th season at Princeton, also coached one year at Lehigh (1967). *--*

No. Coach School W-L 42 Ed Diddle Western Kentucky 759-302 42 Ray Meyer DePaul 724-354 41 Tony Hinkle Butler 557-393 41 Adolph Rupp Kentucky 876-190 39 Phog Allen Kansas 590-219* 37 Nat Holman CCNY 423-190 36 Fred Enke Arizona 402-300* 36 Slats Gill Oregon State 599-392 36 Henry Iba Oklahoma State 664-334* 36 Glenn Wilkes Stetson 551-436 35 Don Haskins Texas El Paso 677-314 35 Dean Smith North Carolina 852-246 31 Taps Gallagher Niagara 465-NA 31 Cy McClairen Bethune Cookman NA 30 Jack Friel Washington State 495-377 30 Guy Lewis Houston 592-279 30 Nibs Price California 449-294 29 Pete Carril Princeton 513-260* 29 Piggy Lambert Purdue 371-152 29 Harry Rabenhorst Louisiana State 340-264 29 Norm Stewart Missouri 580-291*

*--*

* Record at school only. Carril’s overall record is 524-272. Other coaches compiled their records at one school.