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With the 2019 NCAA tourney tipping off next month, we will spend this month taking a walk down memory lane with a choice collection of players/coaches who are celebrating an awesome anniversary this year. From a comeback win to clinch the 1954 tourney title (65th anniversary) through a last-second loss in the 2014 Final 4 (5th anniversary), these legends have all carved out a little piece of history in past Marches. We continue our series with Pete Carril, who did some incredible things during his 3 decades at Princeton. He won more than 500 games while playing in a league without athletic scholarships, won 13 Ivy League championships, made 11 NCAA tourneys, and won the 1975 NIT. In 1997 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame and in 2006 he was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame. HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to chat with Coach Carrril about the 30th anniversary of his 1989 NCAA tourney near-upset of #1 seed Georgetown and the key to the “Princeton offense”.

Your nickname is “Yoda”: who gave you the name, and how do you like it? I got the name after coming out here from Geoff Petrie due to my basketball knowledge. At 1st I found it offensive because I am better looking than that!

At Liberty High School you were an all-state basketball player: how good a player were you back then, and how did you compare to fellow all-state player Bill Mlkvy? I was a good player but not as good as my friends thought I was. We played in a system where we tried to get 100 shots/game: our coach’s theory was that we would win most of our games even if we only made 25 out of 100, and he was right. I did okay: Mlkvy did not do much better than me. The best guy back then was Maurice Stokes, who was 5 times better than anyone else.  Dick Groat was also an all-state player from that era.

You played basketball at Lafayette for 4 coaches in 4 years, the last one being Coach Butch Van Breda Kolff (who you later replaced as Princeton head coach): how hard was it to play for so many different coaches, and could you tell at the time that Van Breda Kolff was going to be a star coach (he later made it to both the Final 4 and the NBA Finals)? It was hard to play for the 1st coach because I was coming from a run-and-gun high school team to a more conservative college offense. By my sophomore year I had established myself as 1 of the better players on the team. Van Breda Kolff was the most underrated coach I have ever known. I saw him play for the Knicks at MSG and he was rough-and-tough, so I was a little apprehensive at the time.

After graduation you became a high school teacher/basketball coach, where former Princeton PG/AD Gary Walters played basketball for you: why did you decide to get into coaching, and what was Walters like as a player? My high school coach probably influenced me more than anyone else. He was such a good coach: he won 80% of his games and was 20 years ahead of his time. He got fired because he could not beat Allentown but we eventually learned that they had been using illegal players. Van Breda Kolff later said he would take anyone from my high school because we all worked so hard. Walters was probably 1 of the fastest guys that I ever coached. He was a good dribbler despite having small hands thanks to constant practice.

In 1967 you became coach at Princeton, where your 1st win was by 3 PTS over Army (who had a coach named Bobby Knight and a guard named Mike Krzyzewski): why did you decide to take the job at Princeton, and what was Knight like back in the day? I spent 1 year at Lehigh and enjoyed my time there but Van Breda Kolff said he did not see how I could turn down the Princeton job. He liked the way I had played and the way my team at Lehigh played. I knew on the basis of his recommendation that I would get the job. We beat Army but I had never heard of Bobby Knight. He was a very tough guy and we were lucky to win that 1st game. I always felt that when I had the better material I could beat Knight, but I respect him immensely and have heard him talk at several clinics. He is 1 of the most thorough guys I have ever listened to. Krzyzewski was an excellent player and you can see what he has done as a college coach.

Take me through the magical 1975 NIT:
Your team went to the NIT because Penn won the Ivy title, and  you started your postseason run by beating Holy Cross: did your team take out its frustration on the Crusaders after not making the NCAA tourney? We were actually frustrated after playing at Virginia the previous weekend. I was worried that my team would be tired because we only went down there with 8 players (2 were being interviewed for Rhodes scholarships!) and my assistant coach was out recruiting. Virginia had some future NBA players like Wally Walker/Marc Iavaroni. I went berserk after 1 of our guys got called for his 4th foul early in the 2nd half and 1 of the refs threw me out of the game. The way that our team handled the game without a coach on the sideline was the highlight of my career. To see that they knew how to play even when I was not out there was great and getting a win in that situation gave us a lot of confidence. Holy Cross used a full court press and we just made 1 layup after another.

Armond Hill had 18 PTS in the 1st half in a win over South Carolina and its star player Alex English: was Hill just “in the zone” that night, and could you tell at the time that English was going to become a star? South Carolina had beaten us earlier that year in their Christmas tourney but we won in March going away. In addition to English they had Mike Dunleavy and a couple of other guys who made the pros. Armond was not much of a scorer but he got a lot of open shots that night. I took him out because he looked tired: Coach Frank McGuire was amazed because Armond was playing so well at the time. English was very smooth: he was inducted into the Hall of Fame the same year that I was (1997).

All-American Ron Lee missed a shot at the buzzer to give you a 1-PT win over Oregon: did you think that Lee’s shot was going in, and what did you tell your team going into the title game? I did not think that Lee’s shot was going in because Armond was able to just nick it with his fingernail. We did not have much time to prepare before the title game, which was tough because Providence coach Dave Gavitt used a gimmick defense in the form of a match-up zone. I always believed that if something happened in a game that we did not cover in practice then the blame should be on me.

Mickey Steuerer scored 26 PTS (9-12 FG) to beat Providence and win the only NIT in Ivy League history: what did it mean to you to win the title, and what was the reaction like when you got back to campus? I was very happy because we had finished 2nd to Penn for the past several years. We had several guys from New York so they were very happy to get a win at Madison Square Garden. When we beat UCLA in 1996 our students came out on the streets to celebrate but the hype for postseason play in 1975 was not as great.

What are your memories of the 1976 NCAA tourney (Pete Malloy missed a FT with 4 seconds left in a 1-PT loss to undefeated Rutgers)? When Malloy missed that FT I knew that the game was over.

In the 1989 NCAA tourney vs. #1 seed Georgetown, Alonzo Mourning had 21 PTS/13 REB and blocked a pair of shots by Bobby Scrabis/Kit Mueller in the final 6 seconds: how close did you come to pulling off the legendary upset? I remember that we were ahead at halftime but the 1st 8 calls in the 2nd half all went against us. The refs could have called a foul on Mourning at the end but they did not. 1 of the main reasons we worked so hard is so that we would be responsible for the outcome (rather than the refs).

What are your memories of the 1996 Ivy 1-game playoff (freshman Gabe Lewullis scored 15 PTS while playing all 45 minutes of a 7-PT OT win over Penn in your hometown of Bethlehem to get into the NCAA tourney after losing your previous 8 games against the Quakers)? We were not very confident going into that game: I was actually upset at the way we were warming up. After the game I announced my retirement, and then we went out to have steak sandwiches at a tavern on New Street in Bethlehem that had been around for a long time. They closed the tavern during WWII and put up a sign that said, “Closed for the duration: off to fight Hitler and Tojo!”

In the 1996 NCAA tourney you got your final collegiate win with a 2-PT upset of defending champion UCLA on a backdoor pass from Steve Goodrich to Lewullis for a lay-up with 4 seconds left (which is still considered 1 of the greatest upsets in tourney history): why did you think that the backdoor play would work if everyone knew that was your signature play, and where does that win rank among the best of your career? The backdoor play had worked for us in the 1st half. Assistant coach Joe Scott said that he knew they would stop the 1st one so we just ran it twice. It is right up there among my best wins: we also had some great games against North Carolina and Notre Dame.

Your teams led the nation in scoring defense during 14 of your final 21 seasons: what was your secret for playing great defense, and did it rely more on strategy/effort/teamwork/other? Every time I gave a lecture on defense some wise guy in the audience would say that we would just hold the ball too long on offense to let anyone score a lot of points against us, but I knew that we were also defending/playing hard. We tried to simplify things by just contesting shots and keeping our bodies in front of our opponents. When you have to guard a guy like Derrick Rose 1-on-1 it just cannot be done. We only had 1 stopper during my entire time at Sacramento (Ron Artest) so we just had to outscore everyone. When we got Artest it helped us a lot: he was so good on defense. The only guy he could not guard consistently was Kobe Bryant. He would guard guys like Paul Pierce/Manu Ginobili and they would just walk around like they were in a fog! We introduced the cerebral sense of how to defend, based on what they could see regarding what the other team was trying to do.

Another part of your legacy is the “Princeton offense” (a low-scoring method consisting of passes, movement without the ball, and back-door cuts): who actually invented it, and what made it so successful? I got so much of my strategy from my old coach Van Breda Kolff. I have said it 5000 times but it never seems to register. We got 1 part of our offense from the old Celtics teams of Bill Russell. He did all the little things that did not appear on a stat sheet. Even though he is in his mid-80s, if you spent 2 weeks getting him in shape he would be better than half the centers who are currently in the NBA! We copied another play from the Knicks that was very effective. Van Breda Kolff was 1 of the most underrated coaches in the history of basketball. He was not an Xs and Os guy but could explain everything without having to write it all down. I am surprised that he is not in the Hall of Fame.

You wrote a book about your basketball philosophy called “The Smart Take from the Strong”: why did you write the book, and why is it better to be smart rather than strong? I did not write the book: I just dictated it to the writer (Dan White), who was having a hard time coming up with a title. My dad worked in a steel mill for 40 years and always stressed education. He told me that the strong take from the weak and the smart take from the strong. It is better to be smart because you can act wisely, which is the best definition of discipline that I have ever heard. If you are wise enough then you can get a strong guy to do stuff for you!

In 1997 you were inducted into the Hall of Fame: what did it mean to you to receive such an outstanding honor? You always wonder whether you deserve it when you see all of the other guys who are already in there. George Yardley was inducted the year before me: he was always 1 of my favorite players. It was an honor to say the least but you cannot live in the past. Every time I go to breakfast I still have to pay for it!

You were an assistant coach for the Sacramento Kings for 10 years before retiring in 2006, then returned to the team as an assistant in 2009: why did you get back into the NBA, and what is the biggest difference between coaching pros vs. coaching college kids? I came back here because I just missed basketball. I do not play golf or fish or gamble, which all take up a lot of time. I like to read and listen to music and take long walks. I used to be able to go out on the court and show a guy how to do a spin dribble, or make enough shots to prove to a guy that I know the correct way to shoot, but I cannot do it myself anymore. You have to convince the pros that what you are telling them is going to work. The biggest difference between the NBA and college is that the players get paid: when you put money into the game it becomes a business. I worked with guys like Kevin Martin/Corliss Williamson: they were just good guys who listened to what I told them and then saw that it worked. I teach my players to imitate the best.