LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Anywhere. Any time. Any place.

Some coaches run from that scheduling philosophy. Some people talk about it. Some people live that style of scheduling.

Put former University of Louisville men's basketball coach Denny Crum, who died Tuesday, at the top of the list in category three.

Virginia with Ralph Sampson? Check. Crum booked two games against the Cavaliers and their 7-foot-4-inch national player of the year in the early 1980s.

Houston and future Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon? Bring 'em on. UCLA and Reggie Miller. Why not? Indiana and Steve Alford? Let's go — in Assembly Hall. Kansas and Danny Manning? Make it happen.

The seven seasons from 1980-86 were the absolute glory days for Louisville basketball. The Cardinals went to four Final Fours. They won two national titles. They beat teams coached by Larry Brown, Gene Bartow, Eddie Sutton, Joe B. Hall, Dean Smith and Mike Krzyzewski in the NCAA Tournament.

They beat Kentucky in an epic regional final in 1983 that kick-started an annual U of L-UK series the Wildcats had steadfastly resisted.

Crum coached without fear. During that seven-year period, Louisville played 28 non-conference games against Top-25 opponents: eight at neutral sites, nine in Freedom Hall and 11 away from Louisville.

His former players thank him for that.

They thank him because Crum taught them to embrace competition. Milt Wagner came to Louisville from Camden (N.J.) High School, a five-star recruit who played in the McDonald's All-American game with Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing. He was convinced he would be launching jump shots early and often.

He did not. Wagner did not play a minute in his first college games, sitting on the bench as veterans Jerry Eaves, Lancaster Gordon and Greg Deuser got all the minutes in the backcourt.

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Yes, he had missed several weeks of preseason practice with back spasms. But Wagner said he had been back for a week and thought he excelled. Crum disagreed.

"I'm a freshman and I was like, 'What's going on?' " said Wagner, who works for U of L coach Kenny Payne as the program's director of player development and alumni relations.

"What he taught me was, 'I'm not just going to give it to you. You've got guys who have been here through all preseason busting their butts. And you come out here for a week and you think you're going to play? That's not how it works here.'

"Even though I might have been more talented than some of the guys who were playing in front of me, they had been there. They knew the system and had been practicing.

"So that taught me to earn everything you get. Don't ever let anybody give you anything. Because if you get it, you're not going to fight hard to keep it.

"That was one of the life stories he taught me. I had no problems after that."

Wagner said Crum's former players thank him because they discovered how to benefit from setbacks in their lives. They thank him because they learned what was required to become the best.

Their coach taught them not to play or live with fear.

"A lot of coaches just wanted to pile up wins, because, back then, if you got to 20 wins, you got in the tournament," Wagner said.

"Coach Crum didn't believe that. You can do that, but when you hit the tournament when you played one of the strong teams, then you're not prepared for it ...

"I wanted to play against the best because I wanted to prove that I belonged there. So as a coach, I think he was ahead of his time as far as playing the best schedule in the country."

The 1980 national championship team took December losses against Utah and Illinois. The 1982 Final Four squad stumbled against four ranked teams outside the Metro Conference. The 1986 national champions started the season 2-2, losing back-to-back games against No. 5 Kansas and No. 18 St. John's at Madison Square Garden on Thanksgiving weekend.

The Cardinals plunged from No. 9 to No. 16 in the Associated Press Top 25.

That Louisville team — the one that defeated Drexel, Bradley (with Hersey Hawkins); North Carolina (Brad Daugherty); Auburn (Chuck Person and Chris Morris); Louisiana State (John Williams) and Duke (Johnny Dawkins, Mark Alarie, Jay Bilas) for the national title — did not return to the top 10 until the final poll of the season.

Losing those early games, plus other out-of-league games to Kentucky, Kansas (again) and North Carolina State, did not shake the Cardinals' confidence.

"The teams that we would play at the beginning of the year that were top teams, we would lose to some of them, all the way through my career," Wagner said.

"But that didn't mean we weren't good enough. It just meant there were things we needed to work on. And that's what we did.

"When the tournament came around, and we played those teams again, it was going to be a different story. We didn't get discouraged. That was part of our pattern."

From 1980-86, Louisville went 19-4 in NCAA Tournament games. Over his Hall of Fame career, Crum won nearly 65% of his NCAA Tournament games (42-23) and ranks sixth all time in coaching 10 Final Four games.

Wagner said that in close games, every player in the Cards' huddle was convinced they had a considerable edge over the opposing bench.

"Coach was one of the best coaches in the country," Wagner said. "I don't think he gets as much credit as he should.

"He should be mentioned with the Dean Smiths and the Bobby Knights. When you mention those guys, you should mention coach. ... Diagramming plays at crucial times, he was a master at that."

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