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Lute Olson receives a congratulatory handshake from Dean Smith after Arizona beat North Carolina in the 1997 Final Four, the last game Smith coached (YouTube video screen shot, click on photo to access video)
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The Arizona Wildcats have the distinction of playing against the late Dean Smith in the Hall of Fame coach’s last game of his storied career.
Smith, who passed away last night at age 83, completed his 35-year career at North Carolina with a loss against Arizona and coach Lute Olson in the 1997 Final Four. The Wildcats defeated the No. 1-seeded Tar Heels on their way to a national championship over another No. 1 seed, Kentucky, in Indianapolis.
“What we did not realize that night was that we had given Dean Smith, the man I had learned so much from and greatly respected, the final defeat of his career,” Olson writes in his book Lute!: The Seasons of My Life. “Several months later, he announced his retirement.”
Arizona went 3-1 against Smith, including another memorable NCAA tournament achievement: Beating the Tar Heels in the 1988 Elite Eight to advance to the Final Four for the first time.
The Wildcats’ success against North Carolina, with two of their most historic victories, is symbolic of how the program went from rags to riches under Olson. Arizona proved itself with those wins over Smith, which included another victory early in the championship season of 1996-97 at the Hall of Fame Classic in Springfield, Mass.
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Lute Olson and his late wife Bobbi celebrate Arizona beating North Carolina in the 1988 Elite Eight, advancing the Wildcats to their first Final Four (YouTube screen shot, click on photo to access video)
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North Carolina holds the record with 27 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances (1975-2001) and Arizona is second at 25 (1985-2009).
“I don’t remember if I took the time to think about the fact that I was coaching against Dean Smith, a man I’d respected for so long who had had such a profound influence on my own coaching philosophy,” Olson writes in his book about the 1988 Elite Eight game on March 27, 1988, at Seattle. “Dean Smith was never afraid to try something new, something different.
“He created the four-corner offense, and at the beginning of his career, he actually substituted five players at a time. He was one of the true innovators in college basketball. It was from Dean Smith that I learned it was okay to try new methods of coaching.”
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Olson also expressed in his book, published in 2006, that he learned the most about coaching from Smith, John Wooden and Pete Newell.
Also in his book, Olson writes about the hotly-contested recruitment of 6’9″ center Steve Krafcisin, who chose North Carolina and Smith over his Iowa Hawkeyes in 1976. After playing for the Tar Heels for a season, Krafcisin transferred to Iowa.
Krafcisin, 56, holds the distinction of being the only player to be coached by Smith and Olson. Moreover, Krafcisin, in his 10th year as head coach of the Des Moines Area Community College women’s basketball team, is the only player in NCAA tournament history to record a point in two Final Fours for two different teams.
“Dean Smith was never afraid to try something new, something different. He created the four-corner offense, and at the beginning of his career, he actually substituted five players at a time. He was one of the true innovators in college basketball. It was from Dean Smith that I learned it was okay to try new methods of coaching.”
— Lute Olson, as written in his book Lute!: The Seasons of My Life
A Chicago product, Krafcisin played for the Tar Heels in the 1977 NCAA title game. After transferring to Iowa after his freshman season, Krafcisin played for Olson in the 1980 Final Four as one of Iowa’s top players.
“I was blessed to play at UNC and Iowa,” Krafcisin said in a 2004 interview with the school newspaper at North Iowa Area Community College, where coached the men’s team for eight years. “In my era, Smith and Olson were two of the biggest coaches of the time.
“The tournaments (including the Final Fours) were great. I went from being a part of a team at UNC to feeling like I had more ownership in what we did at Iowa. We proved people wrong.”
Miles Simon, the Final Four MVP when the Wildcats won the title in 1997, has a well-documented admiration of Smith and the North Carolina program.
I was fortunate enough to be recruited by Dean Smith in HS. When he decided to go in diff direction wrote me a personal letter saying how..
— Miles Simon (@milessimon) February 8, 2015
Good he thought I would be. I saved that letter for a very long time. Meant a lot to me. Truly a class act.
— Miles Simon (@milessimon) February 8, 2015
He was recruited by Smith out of Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei. Smith ultimately had an overload at shooting guard with the recruitment of Donald Williams and Dante Calabria and crossed Simon off his list.
He wrote a personal letter to Simon, who posted it to his bulletin board at home at the time and still has it in his possession.
“North Carolina has almost always been my favorite school,” Simon was quoted as saying by the Baltimore Sun before Arizona played North Carolina in the 1997 Final Four. “I wanted to go there. Anytime I could buy a hat or shirt, or whatever, that said North Carolina, I was going to get it. And just having something from Dean Smith, a personalized signature
“You get a lot of letters from coaches and it has their stamped signature on there. He wrote a little note on the bottom to me, and it was just something that I can treasure.”
“I did write him a letter, and I seldom do that,” Smith said. “That’s nice of Miles Simon (treasuring the letter) and I have great respect for him.”
Simon tweeted this morning: “Landing to news that the great Dean Smith has passed. Honored to have played in the last game he ever coached!! Rest in Paradise Coach.”
ALLSPORTSTUCSON.com publisher, writer and editor Javier Morales is a former Arizona Press Club award winner. He has also written articles for Bleacher Report and Lindy’s College Sports.
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