The Arizona Wildcats wouldn’t be a nationally recognized college basketball program today if not for Lute Olson, who for some strange reason left a really good thing at Iowa in March 1983 to take over a team that had won four games the previous season.
But by the end of his second season he had the UA in the NCAA tournament, the start of a 23-year run of postseason bids, within five years he was in the Final Four and in 1997 led the Wildcats to their one and only national championship.
Cutting down the nets in Indianapolis after an overtime win over defending national champion Kentucky was one of the greatest moment in UA basketball history, but it’s just one of many memorable games during Lute’s 24-year reign in Tucson.