Coffee with Crawford | What I’ve learned (and forgotten) from 33 college hoops openers | Sports

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Another college basketball season tips off tonight. It's the 16th at the KFC Yum! Center. My 26th covering the University of Louisville, 34th overall, and the first in a long time without Rick Bozich.

That's weird to type. Even weirder to feel.

I'll be at the Yum! Center for a 9 p.m. tip against South Carolina State. He'll be at home watching replays of Class A White Sox prospects chasing fly balls in front of 37 people and a raccoon.

If you need me this afternoon, I'll be unconscious.

Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Eric Crawford

This is supposed to be a coffee column, so I figured I'd sit down, pour a cup and try to remember a few opening nights.

I sat. I sipped. I stared.

If I had to rely on memory, this column would be four lines and a weather forecast.

Thankfully, there are archives, yellowed pages, buried game notes and the occasional byline that proves I once had a fully functioning brain.

The first opener I covered on a regular beat was Nov. 27, 1992, in Evansville, Indiana. Southern Indiana vs. Indiana Tech in something called the Kenny Kent Toyota Shootout.

Newspaper clipping — A newspaper clipping of the advance story for the first college basketball game I ever covered, in November of 1992.

I covered it like John Wooden was defending his 10th title and Kareem was waiting to check in. Bruce Pearl's team rolled. I typed like it mattered.

The next one that sticks is my first Louisville game for The Courier-Journal. It had taken nine years, three job rejections and more rewrites than The Godfather III. But I got there.

The game was in Honolulu — a warm-up for the Maui Invitational. I don't recall much about the actual game. I do remember the Marriott's open-air lobby, the trade winds and losing my cellphone on the flight from San Francisco. It was 2000. We weren't tethered to screens yet. I didn't panic. I just went outside.

Louisville won, 86-71. A search of the archives reveals I opened my column with a regrettable linkage of the team's trip to the Pearl Harbor Memorial the day before and its willingness to "attack" in the basketball game. I should've been fired, banned from air travel and made to write PSAs for tastefulness. But no one could reach me. How could they? I didn't have a phone.

Also, I was in Hawaii. Headed to Maui. What did I care?

It was five time zones and three mai tais from the office, and the best my story could merit was Page C4. Different times.

I do remember the ride back to the hotel after the game. Kenny Klein offered me a lift. Denny Crum was behind the wheel. Jock Sutherland rode shotgun. Paul Rogers and I climbed into the back. Denny drove like the accelerator owed him money, like street signs were suggestions.

Most opening nights since? A steep downhill trek.

I do remember opening night a year later. Rick Pitino's first game, Nov. 18, 2001. Louisville vs. South Alabama. Pat Forde got the cover story. I got the blowout.

Louisville forced nine turnovers on the Jaguars' first nine possessions. They allowed just one shot attempt in the first eight minutes and shot to a 19-0 lead. Freedom Hall was unhinged.

Final score: 92-38. Could Carlos Hurt and Reese Gaines both be All-Americans? I wondered. I walked out thinking Pitino would have them in the Final Four by spring. He didn't. Took five more years.

The first game in the KFC Yum! Center? That I remember. It was the Louisville women vs. Tennessee. Pat Summitt lost graciously. Just like she won.

Once I moved to TV, things got murkier. The 2012 season? Gone. Vapor. No digital trail. No clips. If a sportswriter writes a game story and no one archives it, did it ever happen?

I'm not sure.

I remember David Padgett beating George Mason in his debut and opening 10-2.

I don't remember Chris Mack's first game.

I do remember Kenny Payne's — because Bellarmine beat him and I was in the Knights' locker room the whole way.

I know Pat Kelsey won his opener last year. I do not know who he beat. I think I filed something. I hope it was spell-checked.

That's the thing about opening games. Unless something wild — or catastrophic — happens, they vanish. We write about them. We podcast. We pontificate.

And then we forget.

So here's to another tipoff. To another long night, and another short memory.

I'll see you (much, much) later tonight.

Quick Sips

SOUTH CAROLINA STATE? What? You want a game preview? Huddle up. The Bulldogs have a serious coach. Erik Martin was a longtime assistant for Bob Huggins at both Cincinnati and West Virginia, and when he won 20 games and a share of the MEAC regular-season title last season, it was the first time the school had done it in 21 years. As a reward, he lost three top scorers to the portal and two more to graduation.

Martin believes in playing 10 guys, and does it. The Bulldogs will press full court and otherwise pester and annoy you the way Huggins' teams used to. But his top returning scorer averaged 5.8 points per game last season, so there's work to be done.

ON LOUISVILLE: Pat Kelsey was non-committal on a tweet from Jeff Goodman last week saying big man Kasean Pryor had been ruled out of the opener. All Kelsey would say is that Pryor is working his way back. Otherwise, Kelsey will be evaluating how his team has absorbed all it learned from video review of Kansas and Bucknell.