Last season, the Oregon men’s basketball team traveled to Kentucky and beat up the Louisville Cardinals, 88-65.
This year, though, it’s a whole new ball game.
Rick Pitino, the legendary college coach with a national title and five Final Four appearances under his belt, is now roaming the Louisville sideline, and his coaching style could turn around a formerly tepid Cardinals’ team. Pitino will lead the Cardinals into the Papé Jam on Saturday at the Rose Garden in Portland, where Oregon and Louisville will square off at 7:30 p.m.
Whether Pitino has made an impact on the Louisville players will be clear after Saturday’s game.
“(The players) don’t know how to win yet, but they want to win,” Pitino said of his young crew. “They’re not heralded high-school All-Americans. They’re just all nice, good guys and I enjoy working with them.”
If Pitino is going to turn the program around at Louisville just as he turned around the college programs at Boston University, Providence and Kentucky, it will turn when the players tune into his rigid coaching style. Pitino is noted for his physically fit, run-and-gun teams that use a pressing defense to key an up-tempo offense.
Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said that he can see the change in Louisville even after one game. The Cardinals beat South Alabama 92-38 on Saturday.
“There’s no question that there’s a big difference in that team this year,” Kent said. “Their energy and chemistry are a lot higher, and they’re in attack mode.”
Still, the Oregon players say they will not be awed by playing Pitino.
“We’re facing Louisville, not Rick Pitino,” Oregon forward Robert Johnson said. “We’re playing a team, and that team can make mistakes.”
The Ducks will match guards Luke Ridnour, Freddie Jones and Luke Jackson against Louisville’s Reece Gaines, who scored a game-high 18 points against South Alabama, and Erik Brown, who added 15 points. Pitino said the game will be “exciting” to watch because of the promise of a fast-paced contest.
Oregon’s players said they are confident in facing Pitino’s full-court press, even after losing at UCLA last year when the Bruins’ press fatigued the Ducks and caused 23 turnovers. Key second-half turnovers by Oregon allowed UCLA come back to win that game.
“We have a year of experience under our belts now,” Jackson said. “We’re not going to be as excited, and we’re going to be more confident that we can break the press.
“(Pitino’s) aggressive style plays right into our hands.”
The best a guard can get
Pitino had nothing but admiration for Ridnour, Oregon’s point guard. He called the sophomore “as good a point guard as you’ll find in all of college basketball.”
“He makes a coach smile,” Pitino said.
Ridnour was one of the stars of the Ducks’ own America’s Youth Classic last weekend, averaging 13.3 points and 5.3 assists over the weekend, and he also went 17-for-18 from the free throw line.

Resting those legs
Oregon took Sunday and Monday off after playing three straight games last weekend. The Ducks will practice through the week, though, in preparation for Saturday’s game.
“We just played for the first time Thursday,” Kent said when asked if playing three games would give the Ducks an advantage over the Cardinals. “You can look at it as almost playing too much basketball.”
Kent said the Ducks took one positive from the tournament, that they now have “a pretty good rhythm going.”

Lovin’ Louisville
Pitino said he has enjoyed his return to Kentucky since joining the Louisville staff last March. The coach returned to college ball after accumulating a 102-146 record with the NBA’s Boston Celtics in three seasons.
Pitino began his college coaching career at Boston University, where he made it to the NCAA Tournament in his fifth season. He then led Providence to the Final Four before spending eight seasons as head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats. He won a national title with the Wildcats, and went to three Final Fours.