At the Starting Point, Olson Is King of the Mountain

Lute Olson’s mountaintop experience came on a hillside in Italy.

He is a newly minted member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and his Arizona team is No. 1 in the preseason poll for the third time in six years.

But on the night of his Hall of Fame induction in Springfield, Mass., in September, Olson was in Positano, Italy, with his family, preparing for the wedding of his son Steve.

Somewhere amid the five big family dinners -- one on a beach accessible only by boat, one al fresco on a mountainside, another in the little town the bride is from -- Olson and the wedding party tried to tune in for his Friday night induction.

“We could not find ESPN Classic anywhere,” Olson said, laughing. “I had to call somebody the next day to find out what had gone on.”

Pete Newell presented Olson in Springfield, and Olson delivered his acceptance speech by videotape, thanking 46 seasons’ worth of players and calling his late wife Bobbi “truly the Hall of Famer in our family.”

Next fall, Olson, his five children and their families will attend the induction ceremony together as he receives special recognition alongside the class of 2003.

By then, some people figure he might have added a second NCAA championship to the one Arizona won in 1997.

“I think now that he’s in the Hall of Fame, he wants to get another national championship,” said Jason Gardner, the senior point guard. “Not too many get to say they even have one. I think he wants to collect national titles.”

Arizona entered last season unranked with one starter back from a Final Four team, but defeated eventual national champion Maryland in the first game. The Wildcats have every starter back from that team, which went 24-10 and reached the Sweet 16.

“A year ago, frankly, it was a really stressful off-season,” Olson said.

This season, seniors Luke Walton and Gardner are first-team preseason All-Americans. Along with Rick Anderson, they give Olson a three-senior nucleus now rare among college teams. Sophomores Salim Stoudamire and Channing Frye are the other returning starters on a deep roster bolstered by the addition of Hassan Adams, a freshman guard from Westchester High.

That is plenty to make Arizona the preseason No. 1, just as the Wildcats were before the 1997-98 and 2000-2001 seasons.

One difference: The Wildcats are well aware how little that means.

“People were talking about an undefeated season [in 2000-01] and us being one of the best teams ever to play college basketball before we’d even played a game,” said Gardner, a starter on that 28-8 team that lost to Duke in the NCAA title game.

“A couple of things come to mind,” Olson said. “One, I’ve always said to win the national championship you have to be very, very good and very, very lucky. You have to avoid key injuries and illness at the wrong time. And rarely does the preseason No. 1 end up winning the national championship.”

Still, together with the Hall of Fame induction, the expectations for this team put Olson, 68, at the pinnacle of his career.

That he reached this point without Bobbi, who died of cancer in January 2001, is particularly poignant.

In his induction speech, Olson called it “the most difficult thank you.”

“Bobbi was the real head coach, the No. 1 recruiter and the team mom,” he said. “Every player who has ever played for me knows these things to be true.”

Bobbi also was close to her family’s thoughts at the wedding of Steve, a chef trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and Sandra Belcredi, a publisher and stepdaughter of an Italian diplomat. She also had lost her mother as well as her stepfather in the past year.

“It was a really tough week from the emotional standpoint of Bobbi not being there, and Sandra was very, very close to her mother,” Olson said. “She said to me at one of the dinners, ‘This was truly a wedding made in heaven.’ She was sure, knowing how close she and her mom were, and knowing how close Steve and Bobbi were, they were probably up there planning to make sure these two got together.”

After the wedding, high on a hillside, most of the guests took vehicles down to the reception.

“But the tradition is for the males, all the men and good friends on both sides, to walk the bride through the streets down to where the reception is,” Olson said. “It’s the side of a mountain, so it was quite a walk, and Positano isn’t very big, so everyone in town knew what was going on.”

For that, they didn’t even need ESPN Classic.

The Big 12’s Big Three

Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas are No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 in the preseason poll, making the Big 12 the first conference other than the Atlantic Coast ever to have three teams in the preseason top five.

The ACC did it twice, before the 1973-74 season with No. 2 North Carolina State, No. 4 Maryland and No. 5 North Carolina, and before the 1997-98 season with No. 3 Duke, No. 4 North Carolina and No. 5 Clemson.

“The whole league from top to bottom is the strongest that it has ever been,” said Kansas Coach Roy Williams, who has three starters back from a Final Four team. “Regardless of who you play and where you play, it’s going to be a struggle.”

Team to keep an eye on: Texas Tech, with Andre Emmett leading four starters back from Bob Knight’s first team in Lubbock, which went 23-9 and lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Number to watch: Knight’s victory total.

He is 13 victories from No. 800, where he would join Dean Smith (879), Adolph Rupp (876), Clarence “Big House” Gaines (828) and Jim Phelan, who has 819 victories and is still coaching at Mount St. Mary’s in Maryland.

The math is easy: Even if Knight, 62, averages 20 victories a season, he can pass Smith in less than five seasons, and he easily could reach the record in four.

10 Games to Watch

Some key nonconference games:

Oklahoma vs. Alabama, today -- Top-10 matchup tips off the season at Coaches vs. Cancer Classic in New York.

Texas vs. Georgia, Friday -- Players to watch in another Coaches vs. Cancer game: Texas point guard T.J. Ford, Georgia swingman Jarvis Hayes.

UCLA vs. Duke, Nov. 30 -- Blue Devils lost Jason Williams, Mike Dunleavy and Carlos Boozer. Here’s a look at bumper crop of freshmen at Wooden Tradition in Indianapolis.

Indiana vs. Maryland, Dec. 3 -- A rematch of the teams that played in last year’s NCAA championship game, a 64-52 Maryland victory. This one, however, will be played in Indianapolis.

Xavier vs. Cincinnati, Dec. 7 -- City rivals -- and two top-25 teams -- clash in Skyline Chili Crosstown Shootout.

Kansas at Oregon, Dec. 7 -- The two Lukes, Ridnour and Jackson, take another shot at Jayhawk team that beat them in NCAA Elite Eight.

Kentucky at North Carolina, Dec. 7 -- Tar Heel point guard Raymond Felton -- possibly the nation’s top freshman -- tries to bail out North Carolina and Coach Matt Doherty after hideous 8-20 season.

Florida at Maryland, Dec. 14 -- With Juan Dixon and Chris Wilcox in the NBA, Terrapins try to prove that they belong in top 10.

Texas at Arizona, Dec. 15 -- At the moment, this would be a top-five clash: No. 1 Arizona vs. No. 4 Texas.

Arizona at Kansas, Jan. 25 -- This might be a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup -- and for once, with no sign of Duke.

The Outsiders

Which teams will crack college basketball’s inner circle this season?

Gonzaga flamed out with a first-round NCAA tournament loss to Wyoming and has lost high-scoring guard Dan Dickau, but the Zags will have one of the nation’s best front lines in Cory Violette, Zach Gourde and Ronny Turiaf.

More stunning: A study of the nation’s top programs over the last decade by Jack Styczynski in Basketball Times rates Gonzaga No. 8, trailing only Duke, Stanford, Kansas, Michigan State, North Carolina, Arizona and Xavier and ahead of Utah and Kentucky.

The criteria included winning percentage, number of former players in the NBA, graduation rate, academic reputation, coaching and the “cleanliness” of the program.

Other nontraditional programs that could be in the mix are Western Kentucky, with 7-footer Chris Marcus back from foot injury to try to parlay a stronger season into a spot among the NBA lottery picks, as well as Wyoming and Tulsa.

Mid-major threats: Creighton and Ball State.