LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — When Kenny Payne envisions the basketball team he intends to build at the University of Louisville, he thinks about the 1983 Cardinals’ squad the program honored Saturday at the KFC Yum! Center.
On Friday, when Payne’s team practiced for the game they lost to Wake Forest, 80-72, Saturday, highlights of the 1983 team flashed across the video board for the entire practice.
Scooter McCray, Lancaster Gordon and Manuel Forrest were in the arena, as well as Wade Houston and Jerry Jones, assistant coaches to Denny Crum on that team.
“I see dudes that play together,” Payne said when asked what defined the 1983 team.
“I see guys that were one unit. I saw basketball players. I saw guys that played for each other and to win the game.”
Check. Check. Check. Check. Check out that team.
Guys like Milt Wagner and Gordon say it was the finest Louisville team of their careers — and Wagner won a national title in 1986.
I’m not going to argue. Over my four-plus decades of writing about Louisville basketball, that was the best Louisville team that didn’t win a national title.
Eight players from that group — Scooter and Rodney McCray, Gordon, Forrest, Wagner, Jeff Hall, Chris West and Kent Jones — reunited to be honored at halftime Saturday.
Forty years later the McCray brothers were still leading. Rodney drove from Houston to participate in the ceremony, arriving to the game with his brother after attending a wake for Scooter’s father-in-law on Saturday morning.
“They had a lot going on,” Gordon said. “They didn’t have to be here. We would have understood.
“But commitment and dedication is what they taught us and what they were all about. They still are.”
Hall, West, Billy Thompson and Robbie Valentine were freshmen on that squad. Hall and Valentine said that before the opening game, the McCray brothers summoned the freshmen to their room and explained Louisville basketball to them.
“They told me that Coach Crum signed me because I could shoot the ball, so I better shoot it,” Hall said. “They said, ‘Don’t worry about making every shot. If you miss, we’ll get the rebound.’"
“They just told us that we would listen to Coach Crum, we would be good teammates, we would play defense, we would work hard in practice and we would stay out of trouble,” said Valentine, who has to miss the ceremony because of back surgery.
“We would respect the program and what it meant to play here.”
All of those items were non-negotiable. If there were lapses during the season, Rodney and Scooter were eager and willing to remind everybody of the rules.
“Winning is all that mattered to us,” Scooter McCray said. “That’s how we played in high school and that’s how we played in Louisville.
“We didn’t care about who got the praise. We didn’t care who took the shots and who scored the points. We just wanted to win.”
The proof was reflected in the scorebook. All five starters eventually played in the NBA but they only averaged between 9.1 (Scooter McCray) and 14.4 (Wagner) points that season. That was the fewest points the leading scorer averaged on any of Crum’s first 20 U of L teams.
Every starter was at least 6 feet 3 inches tall, but nobody was taller than 6-9. They could all defend multiple positions. The guards were willing to rebound. The frontcourt players could handle the ball and pass it with precision.
“That was my best team,” Wagner said.
Rodney McCray started on the 1980 national champions. He did not call the 1983 better than the team Darrell Griffith led to the 1980 title. McCray also would not say that the 1980 squad would beat the 1983 team.
Why?
“Because the 1983 team got after you on defense,” McCray said. “We were totally together the entire year. We were dogs on that team.”
Put the 1983 team down as a team that beat six ranked teams, including eventual national champion North Carolina State, while racing to a 32-4 record.
Put that team down as the group that changed the basketball culture across the entire state of Kentucky.
By beating Kentucky, 80-68 in overtime, in the 1983 Mideast Regional, the Cardinals forced the Wildcats into admitting what the rest of America already knew:
Louisville was clearly Kentucky’s peer. An annual series was added to the schedule the following November.
“No way we were going to lose that game,” Wagner said.
No way that team was going to lose most games. Its first three defeats were by six to Purdue; by 4 at UCLA, which was ranked No. 5, and by 17 at Virginia, which was ranked No. 6 and featured national player of the year Ralph Sampson.
Put that team down as a group that won 16 straight games before their season ended in the epic Welcome to the Future, 94-81, loss to Houston in the national semifinals.
The Cardinals led that game into the second half. If that team had a weakness, it was depth. After Forrest suffered a knee injury that ended his season after seven games, Crum was essentially limited to seven guys — the starters, plus two freshmen off the bench (Thompson and Hall).
The 1983 Final Four was played at The Pit, the home arena of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. The elevation in Albuquerque is 5,312, nearly the same as Denver.
Jones and Scooter McCray suffered exercised-induced asthma. After the game, both players required oxygen with Jones being taken to the hospital.
Houston featured two eventual Hall of Famers (Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler) as well as three other first-round NBA picks. The Cougars played 10 guys, getting 13 points from sub Benny Anders.
Ahead 41-36 at halftime, the Cardinals were outscored, 58-40, in the second half.
“It was a tough loss, but that was a great team,” Wagner said.
“That team was close then, but it’s even closer now,” Gordon said. “We’ve always been there for each other and we always will.”
And they will remain an example of the kind of team Kenny Payne intends to build at the University of Louisville.
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