ESPN Men's Basketball

Editor's Note: Three legendary college basketball coaches -- Jerry Tarkanian, Rick Pitino and Guy Lewis -- take center stage this weekend as the trio is inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. We'll be devoting a day to each as we examine what made them HOF-worthy. Here is Tuesday's tribute to Tarkanian and Wednesday's to Pitino.

Today’s college basketball fans might not know much about Guy Lewis. But Houston’s former coach guided the program for 30 years. He’s responsible for the team’s five Final Four appearances. Proof of his worth? Houston hasn’t won an NCAA tournament game since he left the building for good in 1986.

His legacy will be rewarded with an induction into the Naismith Hall of Fame this weekend.

Here are the top 10 Lewis memories:

1. "Game of the Century": Lewis didn't just help change a program. He changed the entire game. In 1968, his Cougars faced the UCLA Bruins in a nationally televised primetime game that was viewed by 52,693 fans at the Astrodome. Lewis orchestrated that matchup and the hoopla that surrounded it. In the Associated Press polls, UCLA and Houston were No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. The Bruins were riding a 47-game winning streak that they’d amassed over two-plus years. Lew Alcindor and Elvin Hayes (39 points, 15 rebounds) were the centers of attention. Alcindor, however, had an eye injury that affected his play. But Lewis’ coaching insight fueled Houston’s 71-69 upset. It was a monumental event for both teams and the entire sport.
2. Creation of “Phi Slama Jama”: A local newspaper columnist came up with the name, but Lewis put the group together. All-Americans Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon and their teammates were so captivating that fans began judging the crew’s pregame dunks. Phi Slama Jama was hip and trendy. They were college basketball’s most entertaining collective throughout the early 1980s. They won 26 games in a row and nearly captured the NCAA title during the 1982-83 season. Emphasis on the word “nearly.” See No. 3. ...
3. Broken Hearts: Although Drexler and Co. were a memorable group, the most lasting image from the 1982-83 campaign that anchored the Phi Slama Jama’s legacy was the way it ended. Lewis’ talented UH squad lost the national championship after NC State’s Lorenzo Charles slammed the game winner at the buzzer after Dereck Whittenburg missed a 35-footer. It was a great moment for Jim Valvano and the Wolfpack, but it certainly was a bitter one for Lewis and his team. They were all set for overtime until Charles changed the game and history.
4. Lewis helps integrate college basketball: Don Haskins' Texas Western squad in the mid-1960s is generally credited as the most critical factor in the integration of college basketball. But Lewis and others played key roles, too. The legendary coach signed Elvin Hayes and Don Chaney, the first black players in the program’s history, during that same period. Hayes became a legend in college and the pros. Chaney won two NBA championships and became a head coach for multiple franchises. Lewis’ decision to embrace racial integration was significant, especially in the South.
5. Five Final Four appearances: Lewis is on a short list of coaches who’ve led teams to five or more Final Fours. Lewis’ streak is impressive because he did it in different eras. His first two Final Four trips were orchestrated in 1967 and 1968, when only one team per conference could earn a bid to the NCAA tournament. Hayes, who averaged 28.4 PPG and 36.8 points per game respectively during those seasons, definitely helped. But years later, Lewis proved that he still had it when he guided Houston to three consecutive Final Fours in 1982, 1983 and 1984. By then, the tournament had expanded and the game had changed. The dunk was legalized again. Freshmen were eligible. And despite the changes, Lewis maintained his edge.
6. Olajuwon picks Houston: The man who would eventually become a legendary NBA center reportedly took a detour from a scheduled visit to St. John’s in New York City due to cold weather. Enter Houston. Olajuwon, an inexperienced Nigerian prospect when he reached Houston’s campus, was raw. He redshirted as a freshman. But under Lewis, Olajuwon became one of the greatest centers in the game. He was a consensus All-American as a senior and No. 1 pick by the Houston Rockets in that year’s NBA draft. Was Lewis one of the greatest coaches of all time? Well, consider Olajuwon’s progression.
7. National Coach of the Year honors: For his efforts, Lewis was named national coach of the year in 1968 and 1983. But it took 30 years from that time for Lewis to earn recognition from the Hall of Fame.
8. Hayes boycotts Hall of Fame in support of Lewis: Hayes, Houston’s former superstar, was so upset by Lewis’ previous exclusion from the Naismith Hall of Fame that he had refused to attend all events hosted by the Hall since he was inducted in 1990. “That was a great wrong done and all of the sudden, it's right," Hayes recently told the Associated Press. "And once it's right, it doesn't even make any difference what happened in the past.” Lewis, who won 592 games in his career, reached the NCAA tournament 14 times.
9. Winning streak in 1982-83: With arguably his best team, Lewis weathered a brief storm to launch a historic rally. After suffering back-to-back losses to Syracuse and Virginia during the 1982-83 season, Houston won 26 games in a row (the nation’s longest winning streak at the time). Its streak ended against NC State in the national title game (see No. 2). But that doesn’t discount the Cougars' efforts prior to that loss.
10. Arena named in his honor: It took the Naismith Hall of Fame nearly 30 years after Lewis retired to invite him. But those connected to Houston’s program have been fighting for his induction since he left the team in the mid-1980s. In 1995, the school renamed its home floor "Guy V. Lewis Court at Hofheinz Pavilion" to recognize his accomplishments.

Editor's Note: Three legendary college basketball coaches -- Jerry Tarkanian, Rick Pitino and Guy Lewis -- take center stage this weekend as the trio is inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. We'll be devoting a day to each as we examine what made them HOF-worthy. Here is Tuesday's tribute to Tarkanian and Wednesday's to Pitino.

A list of Guy Lewis’ best players reads more like a college basketball history book.

Some of the biggest talent to play the game lined up for Guy Lewis at the University of Houston. Three of them beat Lewis into the Hall of Fame, in fact.

More than their scoring, though, is how they affected the game. Elvin Hayes and Don Chaney changed the face and the race of college basketball. They were the first African-American players to suit up for the Cougars and among the first in the South.

Meantime, players such as Hakeem (then Akeem) Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler and Michael Young -- better known as Phi Slama Jama -- helped usher in a new high-scoring, high-flying style of basketball.

Now Lewis, the architect of all of that history and success, finally takes his rightful place in the Hall.

1. Elvin Hayes: A Hall of Famer himself, the "Big E" led the Cougars to two Final Fours and one "Game of the Century," the 1968 battle against UCLA at the Astrodome. He would average a head-shaking 31 points and 17.2 rebounds for his career, and he will introduce his coach at the induction ceremony this weekend.

2. Akeem Olajuwon: The Dream led the Cougars to back-to-back national championship games and into the Phi Slama Jama era. Twice an All-American, Olajuwon in 1984 led the nation in field-goal percentage, rebounding and blocked shots. He, too, is in the Hall of Fame.

3. Clyde Drexler: The Glide made basketball effortless ballet, collecting more than 1,000 points, 900 rebounds, 300 assists and 250 steals in his career. With Olajuwon’s help, he helped change the way the game was played, leading Houston twice to the title game. Yep, another Hall of Famer.

4. Otis Birdsong: Birdsong helped shepherd UH into the Southwest Conference, averaging 26.1 points his junior season and following it up with SWC and All-American honors as a senior. In 1977, he led the Cougars to the NIT title (back when that was a big deal), and left Houston with 2,832 points.

5. Michael Young: One of just three players in UH history -- along with Hayes and Birdsong -- to score more than 2,000 points in his career, it was Young, not Olajuwon or Drexler, who led the Cougars in scoring during the Phi Slama Jama run. He averaged 17.3 points as a junior and 19.8 as a senior.

6. Don Chaney: On the game’s biggest stage -- literally, at the time -- Chaney shone. In the "Game of the Century," he played all 40 minutes, scored 11 points, pulled down six rebounds and led with his defense to help the Cougars beat mighty UCLA. Another of Lewis’ prolific scorers, he left Houston with 1,133 points.

7. Lou Dunbar: At 6-foot-9, Dunbar was an oddity: a big man who played point guard. Eventually he’d become a trailblazer, making way for the likes of Magic Johnson, but in the 1970s, he was one of a kind. Dunbar’s real fame, though, would come post-Houston, when he’d go by "Sweet Lou" for the Harlem Globetrotters.

8. Alvin Franklin: Yet another member of Phi Slama Jama to score more than 1,000 points -- Franklin had 1,684 in his career. He still ranks in the top 10 in the Cougars' record books for field goals attempted and made.

9. Rob Williams: The homegrown player was a natural scorer. As a freshman, Williams averaged 16 points per game, pushing that to 25 as a sophomore, and 21 in his junior year. Like his Phi Slama Jama teammates, Williams’ name is still all over the school's record books.

10. Ted Luckenbill: He helped get Lewis’ career started, leading the Cougars to their first winning records under their new coach. He averaged 16.6 points and 9.7 rebounds in those two seasons and scored more than 1,000 points in his career.

Editor's Note: Three legendary college basketball coaches -- Jerry Tarkanian, Rick Pitino and Guy Lewis -- take center stage this weekend as the trio is inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. We'll be devoting a day to each as we examine what made them HOF-worthy. Here is Tuesday's tribute to Tarkanian and Wednesday's to Pitino.

Everyone knows Rick Pitino. Everyone knows Jerry Tarkanian. They are not only college coaching greats and worthy Hall of Fame inductees, but celebrities of the sport, iconic figures in ways that go beyond wins and losses.

Far fewer fans know Guy Lewis. Some of that is just sheer timing: Lewis' 30-year tenure at Houston, where he played in the late 1940s after returning from service in World War II, ended in 1986, which itself is almost 30 years ago now. Did that make you feel old? I was born in 1985, and it made me feel old. Which is sort of the point: Beyond the occasional Phi Slama Jama mention during a March Madness highlight package, fans my age simply don't hear about Lewis all that often -- or at all.

We're missing out. For all their well-deserved status, neither Pitino nor Tarkanian can boast the sheer force of impact Lewis had on game of basketball in the 20th century. In 1964, at the height of the Civil Rights movement, Lewis was one of the first coaches at a Southern school to actively recruit and play African-American players. The school's first two black players were Elvin Hayes and Don Chaney, who countered countless racial slurs by being so dominant they essentially forced other coaches to embrace equality as a competitive survival mechanism. Since his own induction in 1990, Hayes -- a rural Louisiana native who grew up in a place where "blacks had been taught to hate whites and whites had been taught to hate blacks" -- has boycotted the Hall of Fame, refusing to attend any events until his old college coach was inducted, too. "That was a great wrong done and all of the sudden, it's right," Hayes said in April. "And once it's right, it doesn't even make any difference what happened in the past."

In 1968, Lewis helped organize the "Game of the Century" -- a matchup with John Wooden's dominant UCLA program in front of an Astrodome crowd 50,000 strong, the first nationally broadcast regular-season game in college basketball history. In the 1980s, at a time when some still believed the oh-so-exotic "dunk shot" was something to be disparaged -- yes, folks, there was a time when dunking was controversial; the people who manage Kia Motors' advertising just shuddered -- Lewis cracked that it was a "high-percentage shot" and then proceeded to build some of the most talented and entertaining basketball teams of all time.

Despite that pioneering spirit, in retrospect Lewis' tenure feels pleasantly nostalgic. Case in point: From 1956 to 1968 [PDF], Lewis had exactly one assistant coach, Harvey Pate. In 1969, Pate was joined by Donnie Schverak -- because when you end UCLA's 47-game win streak in the first televised regular-season college basketball game ever, it's only fair that you get to add a second assistant to the staff. The last half-decade of his tenure, following Pate's retirement, saw the addition of a couple more assistants -- Terry Kirkpatrick, Jay Bowerman, George Walker -- but that's it. Over 30 years, Lewis coached alongside exactly five other men. Compared with today's coaches, who prowl the sidelines backed by a rotating army of flash card-wielding minions, Lewis' staffs were small and dedicated. No one was texting about the next hot job.

That charming fact is worth explaining because, relative to many of his Hall of Fame peers, Lewis' coaching tree is sparse. Save the handful of folks below (a couple of whom are generous inclusions), Lewis did not give birth to a legion of coaching descendants. But given the impact he had on the game -- from dragging southern basketball beyond its ugly past to engineering the game's watershed TV moment to embracing the joy of high-flying, well-played hoops -- well, frankly, who cares?

Dave Rose: The name most college basketball fans will immediately recognize in this list is BYU coach Dave Rose. Long before he oversaw the Jimmer Fredette show in Provo, Utah (miss you, Jimmer), Rose played at Houston under Lewis from 1980 to 1983, in the heart of the Phi Slama Jama era. Even then, Rose -- who completed his two-year LDS mission in England before returning to play for UH, and who was the only married player on the team -- was so good a leader that he was named a co-captain on a squad that starred Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon, which is saying something. Rose's coaching career began inauspiciously enough at Millard High School in 1983. He later moved on to Dixie State as an assistant and then head coach, and earned the BYU job in 2005 after eight years as an assistant.

Don Chaney: Chaney, Hayes's partner on those heady and transformative 1960s Cougars teams, is probably best known for his work on NBA courts in the 1970s, specifically his stints with the Boston Celtics, where he contributed on two title teams (in 1969 and 1974), earned five NBA All-Defensive second-team honors, and became the lone Celtic to play with both Bill Russell and Larry Bird, a fact that could come in handy at any self-respecting Boston-area pub trivia night. But four years after Chaney left the game, he returned as a coach, and would spend the next 22 years of his life on NBA sidelines, nine as a head coach. In 1990-91, he led young star Olajuwon and an aging-but-still-dominant Moses Malone & Co. to a 50-32 record, and was named NBA Coach of the Year. His last job placed him atop the New York Knicks dog pile from 2001 until 2004 -- the official start of the legendary Isiah Thomas era (about which the less said the better).

Clyde Drexler: True story. No, seriously! Clyde Drexler coached basketball! Wait … you mean you didn't know this? Pshh. Noob.

It really did happen: In 1998, after his retirement from a Hall of Fame NBA career, The Glide was hired to replace Alvin Brooks. As you could probably guess, the attending fanfare bordered on hysteria. One of Lewis' legends -- three years off from winning an NBA title with Olajuwon for the Houston Rockets, as if those two could get any more popular around H-town -- had come home, and he was going to lead the Cougars out of their despondent decade, erase the disappointment of Big 12 rejection, and get Houston basketball teams playing exuberant basketball once more. Can you blame folks for being so hyped?

It's even worse knowing what came next. In two seasons, Drexler went 19-39 overall and 7-25 in C-USA, and The Glide thought better of the whole coaching thing, resigning in order to spend more time with his family. (Given that Drexler never returned to coaching, the tried-and-true "family out" actually seems legit.) It is easy to crack jokes about this experiment, but from this distance it feels like the most devastating turn of the post-Lewis era -- the final, sad squandering of the interest Lewis had built in the preceding decades.

Hakeem Olajuwon: OK, this is being generous, but whatever. It's Hakeem Olajuwon. After his iconic years at Houston, Olajuwon somehow just kept getting better and better, and by the time he finished his NBA career he was without question one of the greatest players in basketball history, full stop. (He also earned inclusion into one of the most exclusive clubs of the 1990s: "10-Year-Old Eamonn's Favorite Non-Chicago Bulls." Belated congratulations to Hakeem.) Olajuwon has never actually coached in an official capacity, but in 2006 he opened his first Big Man Camp, an informal offseason seminar in the art of post moves. Since then, he has worked with LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, Carmelo Anthony and countless other NBA stars, and almost all of them (cough, Dwight, cough) have visibly benefited from the instruction.

At this point, "worked with Hakeem in the offseason!" is on the same overplayed par as "he's in the best shape of his life!" It almost feels too easy to portray Olajuwon as some sort of wizened post-up yogi. But … that's pretty much exactly what he is. He doesn't charge a fee for his camp, and all are welcome. "If these kids want to come here and take the time to listen and to work, if they're willing, it is my honor to help," Olajuwon told the Houston Chronicle in 2006. "This is my way of giving back to the game." Besides, just listen to the guy explain the Dream Shake:

When the point guard throws me the ball, I jump to get the ball. But this jump is the set-up for the second move, the baseline move. I call it the “touch landing.” The defender is waiting for me to come down because I jumped but I’m gone before I land. Defenders say “Wow, he’s quick,” but they don’t know that where I’m going is predetermined. He’s basing it on quickness, but the jump is to set him up. Before I come down, I make my move. When you jump, you turn as you land. Boom! The defender can’t react because he’s waiting for you to come down to defend you. Now, the first time when you showed that quickness, he has to react to that quickness, so you can fake baseline and go the other way with your jump hook. All this is part of the Dream Shake.

Young big men: You will go to the Dagobah System. There you will learn from Hakeem, the Dream Shake master who instructed LeBron. Clear your mind of questions. You must unlearn what you have learned.

Michael Young: Young might be a slightly generous inclusion on this list, too, considering he spent just one season as an assistant coach and has never held a head job. But that distinction begins to fall apart when you consider that Young -- a local product and intense fan favorite who shared 1983 Southwest Player of the Year honors with Drexler and played in both the 1983 and 1984 NCAA finals -- spent the past 16 years working in various instructive capacities for his alma mater. A handful of those years were as a strength and conditioning coach. For the past seven years, Young was Houston's director of basketball operations.

This summer, that tenure came to a chilly close. During contract negotiations, Young was asked to ditch the ops position in favor of a more ceremonial, "community service" role. "James Dickey doesn't want me to be part of his coaching staff anymore," he bluntly told the Chronicle in June. The immediate fallout actively hurt the Cougars, as Young's son -- efficient sophomore shooting guard Joseph Young, a key piece in Dickey's promising rebuilding plan -- decided to follow his father out the door, because, as Michael Young said, "He made a statement to me that he can't play for a coach that doesn't want his dad to be a part of the staff."

It was hardly the most diplomatic ending to a nearly two-decade role in Houston's basketball program. Cougars fans who screamed extra loud for Young during pregame introductions -- Young still gets the loudest -- will surely feel his absence this fall.

1. The Big East will announce its conference schedule on Thursday and according to at least one source the league will end the season as it should -- with its highest-profile series between Georgetown and Villanova in Philadelphia. The Big East has a few historical rivalries and the chance to build a few long-term matchups like Creighton-Marquette and Butler-Xavier. The Big East has the opportunity to maximize its traditional teams, especially rivalries and now has a real chance to bookend its first season as a 10-team league with quality games. The Big East and its television partner Fox had already announced a New Year's Eve opening day of five games -- St. John's at Xavier, Seton Hall at Providence, DePaul at Georgetown, Villanova at Butler and Marquette at Creighton. The conference is making the right call in highlighting its two highest-rated teams for television on the final game of the regular season.

2. Nebraska coach Tim Miles said his players were "stunned" when they walked into the Cornhuskers’ new 15,147-seat Pinnacle Bank Arena. "The new facility is off the charts,'' said Miles. "Every seat is sold for men's basketball games, for every concert.'' Miles needed a home opener that popped. He said he thought immediately of Florida Gulf Coast after watching "Dunk City" in the NCAA tournament. "Once they exploded, nobody wanted to play them so they were an easy pick,'' said Miles of the Nov. 8 game on BTN. "I told [new FGCU coach] Joe Dooley that you're getting an $85,000 [guarantee] check to go 0-1. The Big Ten put us on the road for the first two games [at Iowa and at Ohio State after a nonconference game at Cincinnati] but gave us a great opener in Michigan (Jan. 8, ESPN2) with our students in session. The story is our arena, our practice facility. The team, we'll see. We're young.''

3. Miles' former assistant and successor at North Dakota State, Saul Phillips, got a five-year extension to stay with the Bison last week. Phillips is that rare breed who loves where he is at a level out of the limelight and doesn't look at his gig simply as a stepping stone. Phillips took the team he built with Miles into the 2009 NCAA tournament in their first season eligible in Division I. So, why stay? "I have too many winter coats that would go to waste if I moved,'' said Phillips in jest. "I love my AD here. That's a big part of it.'' Phillips would like to see the Bison get a new arena, something MIles is enjoying at his new gig. "We've raised 30 million privately on a 34-million-dollar arena,'' said Phillips. "We get that done and we can be a good mid-major year in and year out.''

North Carolina's athletics department has not had a very good year. Actually, check that: UNC athletics has not had a very good five years. I'm not talking about its teams' performance, which has been par for the respective course. No, I mean athletics program itself from Julius Peppers' transcript to the Butch Davis football mess to the protracted examination (and re-examination, and re-re-examination) of the Afro and African-American Studies' department's seemingly too-friendly ties with athletics to the public faculty criticism all the way up to this summer's P.J. Hairston saga. The cumulative effect of all this turmoil has drenched a proud athletics program at a proud public university in a thoroughly sketchy light.

At best, a previously pristine veneer has been chipped. At worst, the Tar Heels have provided examples of everything everybody (shady classes, institutional deference to sports, fancy cars for basketball stars provided by mysterious third parties) loathes about college athletics, all in one place. It's not a good look.

In Chapel Hill and the surrounding lowlands, this existential crisis (and the various inquiries and panels assembled to audit it) has produced plenty of discussion. Some have been brutally honest, others too willing to shrug problems away, but the discussion itself counts as a step in the right direction a necessary open dialogue about sports' place in university life, and the competing interests therein.

This discussion remains ongoing. Indeed, just this week, an independent panel led by Association of American Universities President Hunter Rawlings published a list of 28 recommendations These are some of the 28 recommendations on "how to better balance academics and athletics" at UNC, the Charlotte Observer reported Wednesday.

Some of the Rawlings panel's recommendations are semi-silly academic noodling the creation of a "formal consortium of like-minded universities with similar academic standards to discuss creative solutions to problems in academics" sounds like thought-leader speak for "an excuse to go to a resort in Aspen, Co. and argue with other academics for a week." Likewise, No. 26, which recommends UNC "consider reducing the number of hours student-athletes devote to sports," doesn't exactly speak truth to power. There are a lot of bullet points like that. Ideas like "mandatory education program for coaches," "final decision-making authority" for admissions residing in the hands of actual university admissions officers, holding student-athletes are held to the same standards as other students, and an establishing "standards relating to medical care provided to athletes" are so obvious they shouldn't even need to be stated. You guys are doing that stuff already, right?

Still there are some really interesting, even borderline revolutionary, ideas in the mix. One calls for conferences or the NCAA to "establish spending caps on specific sports for team operating expenses." Another suggests a revision of NCAA tournament and college postseason revenue dispersal that would tie financial rewards for on-field success to academic incentives off it. A third posits that "UNC-CH should consider requiring 'year of readiness' for 'special admit' athletes in the freshman year and advocate for this reform nationally. During readiness year, students would be ineligible to compete in varsity sports but would retain four years of athletic eligibility." Those may be entirely unrealistic, but that doesn't make them bad ideas.

Indeed, they're interesting starting points exactly the kind of discussions the entire college athletics industry needs to undertake. Maybe it's nothing more but chastened lip service, but this quote from athletics director Bubba Cunningham is encouraging:

“The infusion of money into college athletics has been tremendous in the last 30 years, and I don’t think anyone understood what that was going to mean to the institution,” he said. “I personally think that we missed the boat years ago when we didn’t increase the number of opportunities for kids to participate in sport. We’ve poured more and more money into existing sports.”

UNC athletics turmoil has coincided with the most fraught collegiate sports landscape in history, a period of ballooning TV profits, conference realignment, and a class action lawsuit that threatens to crumble the amateur foundation upon which the NCAA has been built. Many of these discussions have focused on what is fair for college athletes, whether football and basketball players are being exploited by the schools they compete for. They are loud and as hominem and messy. What can be missed in the noise is that the value of a university scholarship is directly tied to how well schools are educating their players. Whether student-athletes are being taught, or merely shepherded through the motions en route to the next big away game, is core to the discussion in the first place. It is the premise on which the whole shebang rests.

You can't talk about costs and benefits of NCAA reform or NCAA collapse without knowing the realities on the ground. Maybe, just maybe, UNC can turn years of embarrassing investigations and inquiries and panels into an alignment of these discussions once and for all.

Call it a teachable moment.

Editor's note: Three legendary college basketball coaches -- Jerry Tarkanian, Rick Pitino and Guy Lewis -- take center stage this weekend as the trio is inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. We'll be devoting a day to each as we examine what made them HOF-worthy. Here is Tuesday's tribute to Tarkanian.

By the time his career is over -- and in some ways this is already the case -- Rick Pitino will be mentioned among the greatest college basketball coaches of all time. What separates him is how winding his path has been. The coaches we maintain as the game's greatest almost universally built their legacies on decadeslong, storied tenures at blue-blooded schools. They become institutions synonymous with their programs.

John Wooden at UCLA, Mike Krzyzewski at Duke, Bob Knight at Indiana, Dean Smith at North Carolina, Jim Boeheim at Syracuse, Adolph Rupp at Kentucky, Jim Calhoun at Connecticut -- these are men who, as I wrote already Wednesday morning, built their basketball Valhallas in their own image and settled in for a lifetime. Pitino left his own Valhalla -- Kentucky -- in 1997, at the height of his powers -- only the most memorable and notable fork in a career full of them.

Here is a look at some of Pitino's defining moments -- some good, some bad, all of a piece with his story.

1. "The Untouchables": For all the twists and turns that would come before, and all the strange and florid detours that would follow, Rick Pitino's defining moment as a coach will always be the 1995-96 season, when he achieved something like Pitino Basketball Nirvana. After the better part of a decade spent resurrecting Kentucky's proud but bruised program in the wake of the post-Eddie Sutton sanctions, Pitino's beautiful Wildcats machine morphed into its ideal form in 1995-96, when Pitino led a team that eventually would send 11 players to the NBA draft to a 34-2 season, a national title and a place at any "best college basketball team of all time" table.

That season wasn't special just because the Wildcats were so talented. That was part of it, sure, but only the baseline. It was the fact that Pitino managed to unleash that many future NBA players within a style -- his up-tempo, high-pressure, defensively masterful style -- he had been working toward his entire career. He realized it fully, with a team deep enough and balanced enough to utterly dominate with it, in one of those just-about-perfect seasons every coach sees when he closes his eyes at night. Imagine how it must have felt. I'll use the phrase again: In 1995-96, Pitino achieved Basketball Nirvana. It was beautiful to watch.

Also, it happened in these uniforms. Which is pretty great, as bonuses go.

2. The Redeem Team: The decades since Pitino descended from Valhalla were less kind. By the late 2000s, Pitino's personal and professional reputation had been thoroughly bruised, while his old personal rival, Kentucky coach John Calipari, was rapidly turning Pitino's former program into a constant national title contender perennially stocked with the type of pro talent few programs in history have been able to boast. But in 2011-12, Pitino's Louisville group made a surprise run to the Final Four, and all of a sudden a seemingly mediocre team had the look of a national title contender. In 2012-13, that batch of seemingly ragtag guys -- a barely recruited guard best known for biting his nails and no-no-YES shot-selection, a Senegalese center who didn't understand why everyone took basketball so seriously, a point guard who couldn't shoot, an undersized sophomore power forward, and a slow, tweener George Mason transfer -- morphed into a dominant two-way force, a modern update of Pitino's old pressing style capable of seamlessly shifting into any tune their emphatic sideline conductor demanded.

After Luke Hancock, Peyton Siva, & Co. outlasted Michigan in a classic finale, Pitino became the first man in college basketball history to win national titles at two different programs. In April, the lasting shot -- of Pitino and his family drenched in confetti on the Georgia Dome floor, of Louisville's players staring in awe at a cheesy old tradition -- marked Pitino's redemption after years of personal and professional struggle.

3. And everything that went with it: How far had the karmic balance swung back in Pitino's favor this spring? Not only did he win a national title -- which surely would have been more than enough -- within a handful of days at the Final Four, he also 1) congratulated his 30-year-old son on being hired as the head coach at Minnesota, 2) was informed that his horse had won the Santa Anita Derby and qualified to run in the Kentucky Derby, and 3) learned he was going to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. A few weeks later, he reveled in simultaneous horse and hoops heaven at the Kentucky Derby -- unofficial king of all he surveyed. Forget coaches; from March to September, few people anywhere had quite as much fun as Pitino. Even fewer changed the tone of their public-facing lives quite so jubilantly.

4. The Shot: Before Pitino really got his Kentucky machine humming, he had to reform UK out of the rubble of the late-'80s sanctions. That process appeared to come to a symbolic head in 1992 when Sean Woods led the Wildcats to what appeared to be a win over a star-studded Duke team -- just 2.1 seconds before Christian Laettner made the most famous shot in college basketball history. This past March, in advance of Pitino's Elite Eight rematch with Duke, both Pitino and Krzyzewski explained their shared membership in the rarest, most unlikely club. "I think when the basketball gods deem you worthy enough to put you in a great moment, sometimes you're placed in that moment as a winner, and sometimes you lose," Coach K said. "But sometimes the loser shines more than the winner. I thought how [Pitino] reacted and has reacted since made him shine."

5. But it would have been awesome if he had: As in 1992, not all of Pitino's defining moments have been positive, and when the final accounting is taken -- when Pitino one day retires, and the prepared highlight package is rolled out -- it will have to include perhaps his most notorious moment as a coach. "Larry Bird is not walking through that door, fans" is the line everyone remembers, but it was part of a longer monologue:

"Larry Bird is not walking through that door, fans. Kevin McHale is not walking through that door, and Robert Parish is not walking through that door. And if you expect them to walk through that door, they're going to be gray and old. What we are is young, exciting, hardworking, and we're going to improve. People don't realize that, and as soon as they realize those three guys are not coming through that door, the better this town will be for all of us because there are young guys in that (locker) room playing their asses off. I wish we had $90 million under the salary cap. I wish we could buy the world. We can't; the only thing we can do is work hard, and all the negativity that's in this town sucks. I've been around when Jim Rice was booed. I've been around when Yastrzemski was booed. And it stinks. It makes the greatest town, greatest city in the world, lousy. The only thing that will turn this around is being upbeat and positive like we are in that locker room ... and if you think I'm going to succumb to negativity, you're wrong. You've got the wrong guy leading this team."

Had Pitino turned his struggling Celtics teams around, that March 1, 2000, speech might have gone down as a turning point. At worst, it would have been forgotten. (Landing Tim Duncan in the 1997 draft after a league-worst 15-67 season would have helped, too.) Instead, as Celtics head coach, GM, CEO and president of basketball operations, Pitino's failure in Boston was total, and the "Fellowship of the Miserable," Pitino's name for the Celtics' infamously intense fans, quickly turned.

If there was one bright spot (besides "Fellowship of the Miserable," which is amazing), it was when Pitino gave Sports Illustrated the definitive Kenny Anderson quote: "Celtics coach, after hearing that point guard Kenny Anderson has hired a track coach to improve his speed and conditioning: 'Who's he going to hire to run for him?'"

6. Say hello to Billy the Kid: Before the New York Knicks, Kentucky, Boston and Louisville, Rick Pitino earned his national reputation as an upstart coach who turned Providence around from an 11-20 outfit the year before his arrival to a Final Four team in a matter of two seasons. He did so in large part thanks to the arrival of Billy Donovan. Then better known as "Billy the Kid," thanks to Pitino's shameless marketing savvy (Pitino made Donovan dress up like a cowboy on the cover of the Providence season program), he transformed from an overweight, unused sophomore reserve to a star. In 1986-87, Donovan's senior year and the first with a collegiate 3-point line, the Kid posted arguably the most statistically impressive individual season (20.6 points, 7.1 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 2.4 steals per game, and 41 percent from 3) of any Pitino player while leading the Friars to the program's second Final Four. It would be the first of Pitino's seven trips -- and counting.

7. Sept. 11, 2001: One of the most profound tragedies in American history was a personal nightmare for Pitino and his family. Pitino's brother-in-law and best friend, Billy Minardi, was working as a bond trader for Cantor Fitzgerald on the 105th floor of the north World Trade Center tower when the planes hit. Processing that senseless loss has taken Pitino and his family years, and the coach has talked (and written) openly about that struggle -- and the familial bonds it forged.

8. Karen Cunagin Sypher: A decade later, those bonds were tested in the most public way possible. In early 2009, Pitino announced that he was the victim of an extortion attempt, and a week later Karen Cunagin Sypher, the wife of Louisville equipment manager Tim Sypher, was arraigned in federal court on charges of extortion and lying to federal agents. The details of the case -- in which Pitino admitted he had sexual relations with Sypher in a Louisville restaurant, and that he paid Sypher $3,000 when she said she did not have health insurance for an abortion -- were not only embarrassing, they drew Pitino, an avowed family man and devoted Catholic, in a dismal light.

9. The tattoo: Save the family portrait moment at the Final Four in April, perhaps the sharpest contrast to that ugly period in Pitino's life came a few weeks later, in a downtown Louisville tattoo parlor. After his team won the national title, Pitino revealed that, after Feb. 9's five-OT loss at Notre Dame, he had promised his players that if they won the national title, he would get a tattoo. His players proved giddy about the idea (no surprise there) and held up their end of the bargain. Which is essentially how a 60-year-old multimillionaire with a horse-racing hobby and suits that make Sinatra look like a hobo came to stroll into a place called Tattoo Salvation in downtown Louisville, where he obtained his first-ever tattoo.

10. And now, the Hall of Fame: It takes a special career to earn Hall of Fame induction by the age of 60, and Pitino's, for better or worse, has most certainly been that. Now that he seems to be having more fun than ever, how much longer will Pitino coach? How many more games -- how many more titles -- can he win? Whatever the final number, the journey will be just as interesting as the destination. That much is a guarantee.

Editor's Note: Three legendary college basketball coaches -- Jerry Tarkanian, Rick Pitino and Guy Lewis -- take center stage this weekend as the trio is inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. We'll be devoting a day to each as we examine what made them HOF-worthy. Here is Tuesday's tribute to Pitino.

During his career, Rick Pitino has earned two national championships, led three schools to the Final Four (only coach in Division I history to achieve that) and won 664 games.

The soon-to-be Hall of Fame coach has also molded some of the most talented athletes in recent college basketball history. Here is my take on the top 10 college players Pitino has coached, while my colleague Eamonn Brennan counters with his own list:

1. [+] Enlarge

   AP Photo/Morry GashRick Pitino's 1996 title team churned out 11 players who eventually got drafted.
   Tony Delk, Kentucky: If we’re just talking collegiate production, then Delk deserves this slot. He averaged 17.8 points per game during the 1995-96 season and 14.2 ppg throughout his four-year career at Kentucky. Pitino had multiple (future) pros on that 1996 national title team, but Delk was that squad’s best player, especially in the postseason. He was a consensus All-American, SEC Player of the Year, and the NCAA tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.
2. Jamal Mashburn, Kentucky: He didn’t win a title, but he anchored one of Pitino’s most important Kentucky squads. The 1992-93 Wildcats reached the Final Four, where they lost by three points to Michigan and the Fab Five in overtime. Mashburn, a consensus All-American that year, scored 26 points (10-for-18) in the game. That achievement provided more evidence that Kentucky would be a player on the national scene again following a crippling scandal under former coach Eddie Sutton.
3. Antoine Walker, Kentucky: In recent years, he has been plagued by highly publicized financial problems. But Walker was a star in his prime. He was the MVP of the SEC tournament as a freshman in 1995. And he averaged 15.2 ppg for the Kentucky squad that secured Pitino’s first national championship in 1996. Walker was a member of the all-SEC first team that year, too. He stayed only two seasons but they were some the most fruitful individual of Pitino’s career.
4. Reece Gaines, Louisville: Last season, Dwyane Wade called Gaines the best player he faced in college. That’s how good the Wisconsin native was throughout his four years at Louisville. Gaines didn’t fulfill his potential after he was picked 15th in the 2003 NBA draft. But he was a beast in Pitino’s first two seasons with the Cardinals. He averaged 21.0 ppg in 2001-02 and 17.9 ppg in 2002-03. He was a third-team All-American as a senior.
5. Ron Mercer, Kentucky: He scored 20 points in Kentucky’s national title game victory in 1996. But he was a true star in the 1996-97 campaign, Pitino’s last at the school. Mercer was the SEC Player of the Year and a consensus All-American that season. With the sophomore on the floor, Kentucky nearly retained its crown but ultimately lost to Arizona in the national championship game. Mercer scored 13 points in that matchup, his last game as a collegiate player.
6. Billy Donovan, Providence: Sure, he has won two national titles as head coach of the Florida Gators. But in the 1980s, “Billy the Kid” was a star for a Providence program that improved once Pitino arrived in 1985. Donovan averaged 15.1 ppg during the 1985-86 campaign. He averaged 20.6 ppg in 1986-87, the year the Friars reached the Final Four. He’s recognized as one of the greatest players in Providence history, and he’s certainly one of the best players Pitino has ever coached at this level.
7. Peyton Siva, Louisville: Siva represented the character of the 2013 national championship squad that won the crown in Atlanta last season. He was a gritty, quick, smart point guard who anchored Pitino’s second national championship squad a year after guiding the program to the Final Four. He also ended his career by earning back-to-back Big East tournament MVPs. And he’s the program’s all-time leader in steals.
8. Derek Anderson, Kentucky: He started at Ohio State but eventually transferred to Kentucky in time to help the Wildcats win a national championship in 1996. Anderson recorded 11 points, four rebounds and one assist in 16 minutes of action in Kentucky’s win over Syracuse in the national title game. His senior season was affected by a serious knee injury. But he still managed to average 17.7 ppg in 19 games that season. He was also named to the all-SEC second team.
9. Francisco Garcia, Louisville: The Bronx native was critical as Pitino coached Louisville to the Final Four in 2005, the program’s first trip in nearly two decades. Pitino was the first coach to claim three Final Fours with three different programs. Without Garcia, it probably wouldn’t have happened. He averaged 15.7 points, 4.2 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.7 steals per game that season. He’s one of the most versatile players that Pitino has coached at the collegiate level.
10. Walter McCarty, Kentucky: He was one of Pitino’s most consistent players and probably his best singer, too. McCarty averaged 11.3 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.2 steals per game the season that Pitino secured his first national championship. He also hit 46.7 percent of his 3-pointers during the 1995-96 season. His time under Pitino also fueled his coaching endeavors. He recently joined Brad Stevens’ staff as an assistant with the Boston Celtics.

Editor's Note: Three legendary college basketball coaches -- Jerry Tarkanian, Rick Pitino and Guy Lewis -- take center stage this weekend as the trio is inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. We'll be devoting a day to each as we examine what made them HOF-worthy. Here is Tuesday's tribute to Tarkanian.

Rick Pitino's march through college basketball history has been unusual in more ways than one.

Unlike many of his Hall of Fame peers, who find their Valhalla and stay there until they retire, Pitino has been atypically restless. In 1983, he left Boston University, his first head-coaching gig, to be an assistant with the New York Knicks. In 1987, after just two years at Providence, he went back to Madison Square Garden as the head coach. In 1997, after a massively successful tenure at Kentucky -- a last-stop summit most coaches spend their entire lives fighting to scale -- Pitino left for the NBA again, this time to take over the Boston Celtics. His constant search for the next challenge has in some ways obscured the accomplishment; imagine how many career wins the guy would have if he'd been coaching college games uninterrupted since 1978. Imagine if he'd never left Kentucky. Yeah. Yikes.

The other unusual aspect to Pitino's legacy is that his best teams have always been ensemble casts. This is not to say Pitino hasn't coached some great players. He certainly has. But unlike, say, Jerry Tarkanian, whose best players we ranked Tuesday -- or Dean Smith, or Mike Krzyzewski, or John Wooden, or even Bob Knight, who had at least one individual talent (Isiah Thomas) as good as any in college hoops history -- Pitino's brightest stars have always existed less as centerpieces to be built around than cogs in variously terrifying machines.

This is impressive in and of itself, but how do you parse guys whose careers feel interdependent and inseparable? How do you distinguish between the best of those dominant mid-90s groups? Does anyone from the 2012-13 title team belong? Are Kentucky and Louisville fans going to argue about this list?

After no small amount of statistical research and mental haggling, I know the answer to exactly one of those questions. But hey, let's give this thing a shot anyway, shall we? My colleague Myron Medcalf took a stab at it as well. How did we do?

1. Jamal Mashburn, Kentucky: On Tuesday, I wrote that Tarkanian's No. 1 player, Larry Johnson, was a lock at the top before my fingers even hit the keyboard. Pitino's No. 1 is not nearly as certain. Still, while Mashburn didn't win a national title like his successors on this list, he was as gifted and productive an individual talent as Pitino ever coached at the college level -- averaging 18.8 points, 7.8 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.6 steals while shooting 37.6 percent from 3 and 51.6 percent from the field in his three seasons at Kentucky. In 1992-93 -- one year after Kentucky's destined-to-be-replayed-forever loss to Christian Laettner and the Duke Blue Devils -- Mashburn averaged 21 points on 15.5 shots (and 8.4 rebounds) per game, and was rewarded with a First-Team All-American honor and the fourth overall pick in the NBA draft. He might not have been the world-devouring monster that Johnson was, at least relative to the rest of Pitino's talent, but I think he deserves the top nod.

2. Tony Delk, Kentucky: And, having said all that, I would have absolutely no problem if you chose to rank Delk No. 1 instead, as Myron did. Delk's statistics (14.2 points, 3.5 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.6 steals) during his four-year UK career don't look as impressive as Mashburn's three-year run, but that's less a product of Delk's ability than the immensely balanced group of future pros he led to the national title in 1996. He might well have been the best player on that 1996 team; he was certainly its most important, an undisputed team leader that got a large group of future pros to coalesce around Pitino's desire to unleash all that talent in a concerted, balanced, full-court-pressing behemoth. Delk's defense (also something that doesn't show up much in old box scores) was truly fearsome, and his best performances came at the best times.

In that memorable 1995-96 season, he was the SEC Player of the Year, First Team All-American and the NCAA tournament's Most Outstanding Player, and his seven 3s in UK's 76-67 national title win over Syracuse ranks near the top of any of list of best all-time individual performances by a Wildcat. Given the program we're talking about, the team he played for and, frankly, the other 1996 first team All-Americans (which, get this: Allen Iverson, Kerry Kittles, Marcus Camby, Ray Allen), Delk's legacy in Lexington is deservedly sealed.

3. Antoine Walker, Kentucky: Given Walker's future as a swaggering, shimmying, well-paid 3-point chuck, it's hard to grasp the fact that he shot just .188 percent from 3 in 1995-96 -- and attempted a mere 48 3-pointers in the first place. Even crazier? Despite that lowly figure, Walker finished the 1995-96 season with averages of 15.2 points and 8.4 rebounds per. Even crazier? Delk averaged 17.8, Walter McCarty averaged 11.3, Derek Anderson averaged 9.4, Ron Mercer averaged 8.0, Mark Pope averaged 7.6, Anthony Epps averaged 6.7 … I mean, has there ever been a deeper, more balanced national title team? The mind boggles, and now we're digressing again, and anyway: If Delk was the stoic senior leader, Walker (then a sophomore) was the young hotshot. Both were equally important to Pitino's first national title run.

4. Ron Mercer, Kentucky: This is where things start to get a little bit hilarious with the mid-90s Wildcats: Ron Mercer a guy who would put up 18.1/5.3/2.4/1.7 averages as a First Team All-American in 1996-97 and go on to have a totally respectable, lengthy and profitable NBA career, was UK's fifth banana as a freshman in 1995-96. That's, like, borderline unfair. Mercer's excellence after the national title season helps elevate him in this list, and frankly only adds to the mystique involved with that 34-2 national title run.

5. Billy Donovan, Providence: Before Madison Square Garden and the "Untouchables" and Larry Bird-is-not-walking-through-that-door, Rick Pitino was a rising, upstart young coach at Providence, where he inherited a program that went 11-20 one year before his arrival. Two years later, Pitino had them in the Final Four. How did that happen?

Donovan, who, like Providence's program in general, went from a non-entity before Pitino to a star under him. Some good timing helped: Donovan's senior year, 1986-87, was college basketball's first year with a 3-point line, which he exploited to the tune of 40.9 percent. The once-pudgy benchwarmer finished his magical senior season with crazy numbers -- 20.6 points, 7.1 assists, 3.0 rebounds, and 2.4 steals per game -- as well as an unlikely run to the Final Four, a fantastic nickname ("Billy the Kid") and a rest-is-history future in basketball waiting for him. Not bad for a couple years' work, eh?

6. Derek Anderson, Kentucky: The 6-foot-5 guard's supporting role in 1995-96 might have been enough to get him on this list in the first place, but his breakout follow-up was cut short when an injury ending his season after just 19 games. And even so, Anderson made his mark, shooting 40.4 from 3 and 81.1 percent from the free throw line and averaging 17.7 points, 4.1 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 1.9 steals. His overall Kentucky legacy could have been something even greater, but maybe it's even more impressive that he was able to accomplish so much in just a season and a half.

7. Sean Woods, Kentucky: Younger fans might know Woods best from his unfortunate handling of one of his Morehead State players last November, or maybe for the criticism he took for his (prophetic-in-retrospect) blasting of the 2012-13 Wildcats' "sense of entitlement." But before all that, Woods was (and is) a Kentucky legend, part of the "Unforgettables" group that played through three years of Eddie Sutton-era sanctions, resurrected UK basketball in the process. His retired No. 11 hangs from the Rupp Arena rafters for good reason: In just 91 games, Woods handed out 482 assists -- fifth all-time at Kentucky, and the highest per-game average (5.3) of any Wildcat ever. Woods was nearly a March Madness legend, too. His 10-foot floater with 2.1 seconds left in overtime against Duke in the 1992 Elite Eight should have sealed the Unforgettables' Final Four bid. Instead, Laettner made The Shot, and Woods' magnificent performance became a historical footnote. Even so, it's impossible to understate just how important Woods' career was.

8. Russ Smith, Louisville: What if I told you that the best and most important offensive player on a national title team -- one who posted a 108.9 offensive rating on 32.0 usage (11th-highest in the country), assisted on 21.1 percent of his possessions and drew 6.7 fouls per 40 minutes -- was also arguably the best defender in the country? What if I told you that this two-sided excellence caused a reliable advanced statistical formula to rank him as the best player in the country by a significant margin? What if I then told you that same player -- again, arguably the best offensive and defensive player for the team that won its last 16 games, the Big East regular-season and tournament titles, and the national championship -- wasn't even a second-team All-American?

The point is, understanding Smith's career is all about perspective. If the only time you saw Smith was his disastrous five-OT performance at Notre Dame and/or his not-much-better Final Four, you probably agreed with the voters who left him off their final All-American tallies. If you have watched Smith more intently, though, you've seen an occasionally frustrating but often brilliant player blossom into one of the nation's best. By the way: In the past two seasons, Smith has helped Louisville win two Big East tournament titles, gone to two Final Fours, and won the aforementioned national title -- and he still has one more season to add to his legacy. No joke: By the time 2013-14 is over, he could crack the top five of this list. Maybe higher. Frankly, I'm not sure he shouldn't be higher already.

9. Wayne Turner, Kentucky: Another of those relatively unsung 1990s UK guys that were nonetheless really, really good (word to Anthony Epps, Jamaal Magloire and Travis Ford), Turner played in a then-record 151 total collegiate games for the Wildcats and finished his career with 494 career assists (fourth-most in school history) and 238 steals (No. 1 at UK all-time). Turner only played two seasons for Pitino before the Celtics came a'calling, but he was a major reason Pitino's then-revolutionary all-hands-on-deck full court pressure worked in the first place.

10. Francisco Garcia, Louisville: Another classic Pitino player rounds out this list, and while I like that symbolic consistency, Garcia wouldn't be here were he not a very good collegiate player in his own right. As a sophomore at Louisville in 2003-04, Garcia averaged 16.4 points, 4.5 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 1.9 steals and 1.4 blocks; as a junior (his final season), he posted 15.7, 4.2, 3.9, 1.7, and 1.5, leading the Cardinals to their first Final Four in 17 years, which made Pitino the first coach to take three different programs to the Final Four. Like most of the players above, Garcia wasn't an obvious can't-miss pro prospect (though he has carved out a perfectly respectable NBA career), but rather a versatile, rangy, defensive-minded wing who did just about everything his coach asked of him when he took the floor.

If there's a unifying theme to this list -- beyond "the 1995-96 Kentucky Wildcats were awesome at basketball," that is -- it's that. Pitino's best players didn't always have elite pro pedigree. They didn't always wow you with one unstoppable skill. But they were almost always perfect for their coach and his system -- a testament to his ability to build cohesive, dominant basketball teams from a wide swath of unlikely parts.

In sum: Rick Pitino is really good at coaching basketball. You know, in case that wasn't already clear.

Editor's Note: Three legendary college basketball coaches -- Jerry Tarkanian, Rick Pitino and Guy Lewis -- take center stage this weekend as the trio is inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. We'll be devoting a day to each as we examine what made them HOF-worthy. Here is Tuesday's tribute to Tarkanian.

There are coaching trees and then there is the forest birthed by Rick Pitino. Imagine crossing a redwood with a sequoia. And then adding the Rockefeller Christmas tree on top for good measure.

That gets you maybe a quarter of the way up the branches of Pitino’s tree. No fewer than 13 of his ex-assistants and/or players currently serve as college head coaches (Mick Cronin, Scott Davenport, Billy Donovan, Travis Ford, Marvin Menzies, Richard Pitino, Kareem Richardson, Steve Masiello, Herb Sendek, Tubby Smith, Reggie Theus, Kevin Willard, Sean Woods). And if you stretch the list to include former head coaches or current assistants, it goes on for miles.

Between them, Pitino’s disciples have four national championships of their own (two for Donovan, one each for Smith and Davenport). So trying to pick the best of this family tree is like trying to pick your favorite uncle. Highly subjective.

Consider this attempt just that, then -- an attempt to amass a list of the most successful ... with an out clause list of others who were left off.

1. Billy Donovan: Before he won two national titles at the University of Florida, Donovan was Billy the Kid, the feisty point guard who led Providence and Pitino to the Final Four in 1987. Two years later, Donovan and his mentor reconnected at the University of Kentucky, where Donovan cut his coaching teeth as an assistant until 1994. Embarking on his own as a head coach, first at Marshall and now at Florida, Donovan has rolled up 13 NCAA tournament bids and has been to at least the Elite Eight in five of the past six appearances.

2. Tubby Smith: Smith had the unenviable job of following in Pitino’s well-heeled footsteps at Kentucky, when Pitino’s one-time assistant returned to Lexington as head coach in 1997. Smith picked up right where his old boss left off, leading the Wildcats to their seventh national championship in his first season. Smith would go on to reach the 100-win mark faster than any other UK coach not named Adolph Rupp and collect five SEC titles. The former head coach at Tulsa and Georgia went on to Minnesota and is now at Texas Tech.

3. Jeff Van Gundy: The popular NBA analyst and former NBA head coach was part of a pretty impressive bench lineup at Providence. Van Gundy was the graduate assistant, alongside assistants Herb Sendek and Stu Jackson, when the Friars went to the Final Four in 1987. Van Gundy, who was working as a high school head coach before Pitino hired him, used that coaching gig to launch his own career. He’d eventually serve as head coach for both the New York Knicks and Houston Rockets.

4. Jim O’Brien: The son-in-law of one Hall of Famer (Jack Ramsay), O’Brien would begin working alongside a future Hall of Famer in 1994, when he joined Pitino at Kentucky. Long a college coach in his own right, O’Brien helped Pitino usher the glory years back to Lexington and when Pitino jumped to the Boston Celtics, O’Brien went with him. Little did he know it was the beginning of his own career. It was O’Brien who would take over in Boston after Pitino epically flamed out, twice leading the Celtics to the playoffs. He’d then go on to two more NBA head-coaching jobs, with Philadelphia and Indiana, before retiring at the end of last season.

5. Herb Sendek: The master of his own pretty heavily limbed coaching tree, Sendek got his start under Pitino. The western Pennsylvania native joined the Providence staff as a graduate assistant before moving up to assistant coach. When Pitino left PC for Kentucky, Sendek went with him, spending four seasons with the Wildcats before launching his own head-coaching career. Sendek has gone from Miami (Ohio) to NC State to Arizona State and now has 20 years of head-coaching experience. He has made seven NCAA tournaments and has three conference coach of the year awards.

6. Frank Vogel: No one can trace their roots directly to Pitino quite as thoroughly as the Indiana Pacers head coach. After meeting Pitino at Five-Star camp in Pittsburgh, Vogel, then a student at Juniata College, decided he was transferring on the spot to Kentucky. He had no promise of anything from Pitino but after loitering around the gym for weeks, he got a two-week trial period helping out assistant Jim O’Brien. A year later he was a student manager, and after graduation served as a video coordinator. The coach was so impressed with Vogel’s abilities that when Pitino went on to the Boston Celtics, he brought Vogel with him, hiring him as the team’s video coordinator. Vogel would outlast Pitino in Boston, staying on as an assistant coach under O’Brien. Six years later, when O’Brien was fired at Indiana, Vogel was named the Pacers’ interim coach. This past season under Vogel, the Pacers made their first Eastern Conference finals appearance since 2004.

7. Mick Cronin: The son of a head coach counts his father and Pitino as his two biggest mentors. He joined Pitino at Louisville in 2001 after five seasons at the University of Cincinnati under Bob Huggins. Eventually becoming Pitino’s right-hand man and associate coach, Cronin was lauded for his recruiting savvy and eventually parlayed that into a head-coaching job at Murray State. He led the Racers to two Ohio Valley titles and NCAA tourney appearances before leaving to lead his alma mater, Cincinnati. Cronin has been credited with reviving the Bearcats, who had just one returning player when he arrived on campus.

8. Ralph Willard: One of Pitino’s closest friends and confidants, Willard worked alongside the Hall of Famer in three different stretches -- first as an assistant with the Knicks (1987-1989), then later at Kentucky (1989-90) and finally, at Louisville (2009-2012). In between, Willard forged his own impressive career, serving as head coach at Holy Cross, Pittsburgh and Western Kentucky. He had his best success at his alma mater, Holy Cross, leading the program to four NCAA tournament berths and amassing a 192-117 record at the Patriot League school.

9. Travis Ford: The beloved Kentucky point guard started his career at Missouri but transferred to his home state school because he liked the style of its head coach. That would be Rick Pitino. Ford, fashioned in the same spitfire image of Billy Donovan, would take the Wildcats to three NCAA tournaments. With all that UK love and his coach’s endorsement, Ford landed his first head-coaching gig at the tender age of 26, taking over at NAIA Campbellsville. That led to a job at Eastern Kentucky -- and EKU’s first NCAA berth in 25 years -- which led to a job at Pitino’s alma mater, UMass (and an Atlantic 10 title) and now to Oklahoma State.

10. Scott Davenport: Maybe not as well known as others on this list, Davenport is every bit as successful. In his eighth season at Division II Bellarmine, Davenport has taken a program that was sub-.500 before he arrived all the way to a national championship in 2011. The former high school coach made the jump to the college game in 1996, joining Denny Crum’s staff at Louisville. When Pitino came aboard in 2001, Davenport stayed on staff, working with Pitino until 2005, when he moved on to Bellarmine.

11. Marvin Menzies: As a longtime assistant coach, Menzies' resume went on for pages before he joined Pitino at Louisville in 2005. Menzies’ career had hopscotched from the high school ranks to junior college to San Diego State to USC to UNLV. After just two seasons alongside Pitino, Menzies was a head coach, taking over at New Mexico State. He has since led the Aggies to three WAC titles and three NCAA tournament berths.

Others to be considered: Cal State Northridge head coach Reggie Theus (Louisville assistant, 2003-05); Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard (Louisville assistant, 2001-07); Florida assistant coach John Pelphrey (played at Kentucky); former NBA executive vice president Stu Jackson (Providence and New York Knicks assistant).

1. The Pac-12 released its television schedule Tuesday and the conference lucked out with at least a few set matchups at the end of the season. The Pac-12 hasn't historically looked to pencil in rivalries to end the year. And that didn't occur this season, either. But there's a good chance the season-ending Arizona-Oregon game in Eugene on March 8 could have Pac-12 title ramifications. The Wildcats and Ducks have played some late-possession games over the years and games in Eugene are usually rocking for these two teams. Colorado drew the toughest ending of a schedule by going to Stanford and Cal on March 5 and 8, respectively. The Buffaloes are a tournament team but any chance on competing for a top two or three finish might hinge on that final weekend. UCLA goes to Washington on March 5 in what has tended to be one of the best atmospheres in Seattle throughout the season. The wildcard in this final weekend race could be Arizona State. The Sun Devils will go to the Oregon schools (March 4 in Eugene on and March 8 in Corvallis) in what should end up being a critical weekend for their NCAA seed or berth.

2. Virginia coach Tony Bennett said he was indifferent as to whom the Cavaliers end the ACC regular-season schedule with when Maryland is off to the Big Ten in 2014-15. The Cavaliers have traditionally ended with the Terps and do so again this season, meeting in College Park. It should be a critical game for two teams with tournament aspirations. Bennett mentioned Virginia Tech as a possibility but wasn't married to it considering the Cavs and Hokies always play twice and those games can generate fan interest regardless of when they're on the schedule. The Cavs have three Big Monday games in the inaugural year of the event for the ACC: at Duke (Jan. 13), vs. North Carolina (Jan. 20) and vs. Maryland (Feb. 10). Virginia has a loaded nonconference slate, too, with games against James Madison (NCAA tourney team last season) Nov. 8, VCU (Nov. 12), Davidson in Charlotte (Nov. 16), vs. upstart SMU in Corpus Christi (Texas) on Nov. 29, Wisconsin (Dec. 4), at Green Bay (Dec. 7), Northern Iowa (Dec. 21) and at Tennessee (Dec. 30). Bennett said senior forward Akil Mitchell, who broke his hand, should be ready to go for practice. And there is no issue with senior Joe Harris, who missed the World University Games with a foot injury. Sophomore Mike Tobey might have had the best summer by making the gold-medal winning U-19 team in Prague, in which Bennett was an assistant coach.

3. My thoughts and prayers go out to Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan, who lost his father Butch, who was 89, last week after he had been put in hospice in Florida. Bo and Butch were staples at the Final Four, nearly every year. I saw them almost always together in and around events at the Final Four. Bo's devotion to his father was touching. He doted on his dad, getting great pleasure in introducing him to everyone he would come into contact with at the event. The two looked alike and had similar mannerisms. Butch got Bo interested in the game and, like his son, was never short on words. Bo called as he was racing down to see his father in his final moments. He spoke so lovingly and glowingly about his father and what he meant to him. Bo was able to cherish moments like the Final Four with him even during his hectic schedule. Butch became a part of the college basketball community and around the Wisconsin program. He will be sorely missed.

Dogs go away. There is no changing this fact. It is always there, and every pet owner must eventually come to terms with it. Long before you pass, your once-tireless puppy will slow down. It happens slowly, like a montage from a bad movie, and then all at once. The old girl won't run up the stairs quite as fast as she used to. Once-routine games of fetch become teary tribute shows.

A decade's got behind you, as the old song goes, and the eventuality that lived in the back of your head from the first moment you brought your buddy home and got her to sleep on that first sleepless, yelping night -- the thing you never really wanted to admit to yourself, even though you always knew -- has arrived. Your friend will go away soon. Plans must be made.

Pet owners of all stripes think about this a lot -- so much so, I'd wager, that we actively avoid it when the pet is anyone else's. The same holds true for mascots. To fans, mascots aren't pets; they're eternal symbols of school pride. Symbols don't have to go away. Symbols are distant, immortal. Symbols don't say goodbye.

In the past few years, thanks to Butler's back-to-back Final Four appearances and some savvy social media presence, Butler Blue II became the most prominent mascot in college basketball -- the most recognizable symbol, save its head coach, of a small Indianapolis school's storybook rise to fame.

But Blue II went away too, Butler announced Tuesday, the result of congestive heart failure weeks in the making. Even at the end, he and Michael Kaltenmark were friendly and endearing and fun, and that might be the best testament to Butler Blue II that I can think of -- the reason why news of the little guy's passing hit the Internet (and yours truly) as hard as it did this afternoon.

Blue II never felt like a mascot. He felt like a pet, like Butler's pet, like college basketball's pet, only with a tiny Nike sweater and a courtside seat. He wasn't a symbol. He was a real dog.

It only feels fitting, then, to offer a real goodbye. So, goodbye, Blue II. Rest in peace, little buddy. You were a really awesome dog, and you'll be missed. And if you'll excuse me, it seems my house in in need of a thorough dusting.

ESPN’s 2013-14 Pac-12 regular-season schedule will feature 37 conference games across the company’s family of networks.

ESPNU will debut a new weekly Sunday series of Pac-12 games, forming a doubleheader with the ACC. Also, the second season of a Wednesday late-night game will return and be highlighted by the beginning of a doubleheader that will air on ESPN2 (9 p.m. ET) and ESPNU (11 p.m. ET) for five consecutive weeks from Jan. 29 through March 5. The Pac-12 will also have a weekly game on most Thursdays on ESPN or ESPN2 at 9 p.m. ET.

Afternoon Links are exactly what they say they are. Now that the brutally slow dog days of August are over, you'll probably see more Afternoon Links. Probably. Maybe? We'll see. To submit you own, hit me here or on Twitter @eamonnbrennan.

• Rakeem Buckles' last-ditch appeal to play at Minnesota this season has been denied according to Richard Pitino, ESPN's Jeff Goodman reported Tuesday afternoon. The move would have been Buckles' second transfer, which is probably the best explanation for why the NCAA out-and-out denied him the chance to play for a team that is ineligible for postseason play thanks to NCAA APR penalties dating to the Isiah Thomas era (never forget). But just because that is the best explanation does not make a particularly good one, and it'd be nice if the NCAA could at least provide some hint as to the rationale here. The alternative means giving up on understanding transfer rules entirely, which is probably our only course of action at this point. Sigh.
• Top-50 2014 wing Trevon Bluiett committed to UCLA coach Steve Alford this weekend. Alford convinced Bluiett to head west out from under a handful of schools that had recruited him heavily in-state, including Alford's alma mater, Indiana. Worth noting is that Alford hired Bluiett's former high school coach, Ed Schilling, to his staff at UCLA. Alford's recruiting efforts in the coming seasons — both locally and, apparently, from his connections in the middle of the country — will be the defining factor in his success going forward.
• Iowa State dismissed reserve guard Bubu Palo. From the AP: "Palo originally was suspended last year after being charged with second-degree sexual assault. That charge was dropped in January of this year and the university's Office of Judicial Affairs cleared him to play, allowing him to return to the team. But that decision was appealed, the university said in a statement released Saturday, and Palo then was found to have violated ISU's Student Code of Conduct, resulting in his dismissal."
• Illinois kept up its solid recruiting under John Groce this weekend, landing 2014 power forward Leron Black.
• Gary Harris suffered an ankle injury during a pickup game this weekend, one that will keep him sidelined for about four weeks. Not at all a big deal in a vacuum, but slightly disconcerting, given the nagging injuries that hampered Harris throughout his freshman season.
• First rule of redesigning your college basketball court in the post-Oregon era: Never, ever, ever leave it up to a vote. This is what happens. Go home, James Madison's new court. The long weekend is over.

When you blog every day, it is best not to think about the totality of your output. Take it from me, someone who has been doing this in one form or another for longer than I'd prefer to disclose, and who knows how to follow his own advice: When you write a certain number of words almost every day for (oh, let's say) eight years, considering the sheer number of words involved -- or how many books you could have put those words into -- can be a tad bit depressing. In my experience, it's best to put your head down and keep writing, because a) it's really fun, b) existential crisis leads to writer's block, which is best fought by constant writing and c) who reads books, anyway? Pshh. Books.

Former Michigan reserve Josh Bartelstein has found a third way.

Bartlestein began logging his experiences for the Wolverines' athletics website as a Michigan walk-on after his freshman (2009-10) season, back when the Wolverines were a sub-.500 rebuilding entity still finding their feet in the John Beilein era. What began as a lark (as so many of the best blogs do) rapidly turned into a minor calling. Bartelstein's thoughtful insights into his own team, written from someone actually on the team, were frequently fascinating.

In the meantime, Beilein built the Wolverines into a Big Ten champ and then a national title contender (and eventual runner-up), and Bartelstein kept up the blog posts throughout. Bartelstein was robbed of a conventional storybook ending, but his final entry -- titled "The Final Entry" -- put a fitting coda on a solid few years of blog work. A salute was most certainly in order.

But Bartelstein has figured out a way to not only archive all that great work, but make a little coin from it, too. As MLive.com's Nick Baumgardner reported Monday evening, Bartelstein is collecting his popular blog posts into a self-published eBook available for purchase at BlogIntoBook.com. This is a really handy idea. Not only does the blog get a definitive long-term home, Bartelstein can (hopefully) make a little scratch for his efforts, now that he's not a student-athlete forced to prime the content pumps for his school's website for free. For Michigan fans, this is a must-read. For everyone else, consider it a donation to one of the best chroniclers of Michigan's resurrection -- a guy who happened to be in the locker room the entire time to boot.

At the very least, consider this your chance to clear the karmic ledger for the time you bought all those other horrible Tumblr books at Urban Outfitters. You people know who you are.

Editor's Note: Three legendary college basketball coaches -- Jerry Tarkanian, Rick Pitino and Guy Lewis -- take center stage this weekend as the trio is inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. We'll be devoting a day to each as we examine what made them HOF-worthy.

As part of our Hall of Fame week celebrations, I'm ranking the 10 best players of Jerry Tarkanian's coaching career. (Check back during the week for other similar lists.) As you might expect, most of them played for Tark at UNLV. But one did not.

Oh, and in case you thought the process of ranking these players was painstaking, well, it was, sort of, but not nearly as much as it could have been, were it not for the help of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and, yes, Tarkanian himself. That's right: In 2010, the Review-Journal published the results of a 25-person panel charged with ranking the top 100 players in UNLV history. That was a handy reference, to say the absolute least. Even better? The newspaper also solicited the views of Tarkanian himself, who refused to mince words -- both positive and negative -- about his former players. My favorite: "Lewis Brown is [ranked] too high. He was a pain in the [bleep] in a lot of ways." My second favorite: "Jackie Robinson is too high. Jackie couldn't shoot. He could jump to the moon, but he couldn't shoot." Pretty great, right?

Anyway, with some thanks to the paper and the Shark himself, here's a quick rundown of the 10 best players of Tarkanian's tremendous coaching career.

1. Larry Johnson, UNLV: Sitting on the beach this weekend, before I had even opened my laptop to begin trying to pretend to think about this list, Larry Johnson was locked in at No. 1. You probably don't need me to run down Johnson's credentials, but before he went on to that good-but-disappointing pro career, he posted career averages of 21.6 points, 11.2 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.9 steals, 1.2 blocks per game, with 64.3/34.9/78.9 shooting percentages. He won the Wooden Award and a national title, and he was by far the best player on a team that packs this list. Point is, this was a done deal before my editor even assigned me this list. Too easy. As for Tark? "Larry stood out way above everyone," he told the Review-Journal three years ago. "I think he was the best by far." No argument here.

2. Stacey Augmon, UNLV: As good as Johnson was, UNLV was a force unseen in college basketball because he was surrounded by some rather insane supporting pieces — none more so than Augmon, whom Bill Walton famously dubbed "The Plastic Man." (Bill Walton has been at peak awesomeness levels for decades now, kids.) A four-year player who averaged 13.9 points, 6.9 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.9 steals in -- get this -- an average of 36.23 games per season, Augmon was the versatile star-level wing who gave UNLV's overwhelming athleticism both offensive versatility and defensive backbone. He won the NABC Defensive POY award three times. He was crazy-good in ways old box scores can only tease.

3. Armen Gilliam, UNLV: Armen Gilliam "was the second-best player I coached at UNLV," according to Tarkanian. I'm going to stick to my Augmon guns, but you can understand where the old ball coach is coming from. After all, the historic excellence of Tarkanian's early-'90s teams has long since overshadowed how good the Rebels were in the mid-1980s. But during Gilliam's tenure -- 1984 to 1987 -- the Rebels were 93-11 overall, usually ranked No. 1, and won 38 games in one season, still the most by any one team in a single season. Another single-season record -- 938 points, the most scored by any UNLV player -- belongs to Gilliam, who averaged 23.2 points on 15.3 field goals in 32.3 minutes per game in 1986-87. Also, his nickname was "The Hammer," one of the best hoops nicknames ever. (When it came to awesome nicknames, UNLV players had the market cornered.) Gilliam passed away during a pickup game in 2011 at age 47, but his basketball legacy, including that magical '87 Final Four run, lives on.

4. Sidney Green, UNLV: Tark on Green: "Sidney Green only had one great year for us. But his senior year was great. He's in the top 10 but not the top five." Is it cool to slightly disagree again? I hate to do it, but look: Yes, Green's senior year was capital-G Great (22.1 points, 11.9 rebounds, 1.4 blocks, 36.1 minutes per game), but it was hardly his only elite year — he averaged 10.7 boards per game for his career, and posted 15.6, 15.0 and 16.7 points per game in each of those three seasons in the early 80s. Coaches are always looking for more from their guys, and you can bet Tark knew what Green had to give even when Green didn't; that had to be massively frustrating. But if we're being fair, Sidney Green was really, really good.

5. Reggie Theus, UNLV: Theus' career stats -- 12.9 points, 4.4 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game in 91 career games (over three seasons) -- might not pop your eyeballs out of your head. But the teams he played for, most notably the 29-3 Final Four team from 1977, officially put Tarkanian's program on the map. Not only did those Runnin' Rebels teams introduce UNLV to the nation but they did so through a thrilling, up-tempo style -- matching burgeoning Las Vegas flash with genuine substance.

6. Ed Ratleff, Long Beach State: Tarkanian will always be remembered for his Vegas teams, but Tark gave his first preview of the power shift that was to come during his years at the Beach. Ratleff was by far his best player; he and his teammates went 75-12 in three seasons under Tarkanian, during which Ratleff averaged 21.4 points per game. In 1971, the 49ers led three-time defending champ UCLA by as many as 11 points before Ratleff was called for what he now politely deems a "strange" fifth foul. The 49ers eventually fell 57-55, and UCLA went on to win its fourth national title. Later, Ratleff would play on the 1972 Olympic team that refused its silver medal after a controversial gold-medal game loss to the USSR.

7. Greg Anthony, UNLV: This might be the craziest thing about those UNLV teams: Just about anywhere else in the country, Greg Anthony would have been the best player on his team for pretty much his entire career. In Vegas, he was the third wheel. But what a third wheel he was -- a smart, capable, push-the-pace point guard who made the Runnin' Rebels go.

8. Eddie Owens, UNLV: If Theus was the most notable player from the 1977 team that put the Rebels on the map, Owens was the linchpin. A member of Tarkanian's first recruiting class, Owens departed Des Moines for Vegas in 1973 back when UNLV was mostly unheard of, basketball-wise. By the end of his four years, Tarkanian was off and running.

9. J.R. Rider, UNLV: Easily one of the most talented players in Tarkanian's tenure, Rider's career peaked just after Tark's tenure and was known as much for its downs (particularly later, during his NBA days) as its ups. Still, Rider did post 29.1 points and 8.9 rebounds per game in the 1992-93 season, while shooting 51.5 percent from the field, 40.1 percent from 3 and 82.6 percent from the free throw line, which is so crazy good it almost doesn't matter that it came one year after Tarkanian was forced to resign.

10. Freddie Banks, UNLV: From Tark, on the Review-Journal's list, which ranked Banks No. 8: "I love Freddie Banks. He was a clutch shooter. God, he hit big shots for us. His ranking is about right." You said it, coach.

Honorable mention, just because: Anderson Hunt, UNLV: I would tend to lean toward the guy who hit the game-winning shot against Arizona in the 1989 Sweet 16, which might be the most memorable single shot in Tarkanian's entire career. Plus, Hunt could really play, despite being overlooked in favor of the Johnson/Augmon/Anthony glory days trifecta. So, honorable mention. Exactly what it says it is, actually.