'Golden Child' and Cards Make It Through Crucible

CHARLOTTE, March 28 -- His teammates call him the "Golden Child" because David Padgett doesn't have to practice as much as everyone else on the Louisville roster. And when he speaks in that heavy baritone, whether in the locker room or on the court, everyone listens.

Even Coach P, which is how the Louisville Cardinals refer to Rick Pitino, has given up trying to hide Padgett's special status on the squad.

But in a sport in which resentment and jealousy can sour team chemistry quicker than a costly turnover in overtime, Louisville players feel nothing but gratitude for their 6-foot-11, 250-pound Golden Child.

Without Padgett, 23, Louisville's sharp-shooting center and unanimous choice as team captain, the Cardinals would have had no chance at the late-season surge that transformed them from an NCAA tournament wannabe to the precipice of the Final Four.

One final hurdle awaits before they can book passage to San Antonio next weekend, and it's formidable: top-seeded North Carolina (35-2), their opponent in Saturday's NCAA East Region final at Charlotte Bobcats Arena.

The Cardinals grope for analogies that do justice to Padgett's significance to the team, whose tournament prospects looked hopeless after their senior center broke his right kneecap on Nov. 18.

Padgett is their coach. Their quarterback. Their head. Their heart. Still, words fail.

Offers junior forward Terrence Williams: "There is a new technology [that] you can drive some cars without a key. But he's the key to everything on our team."

Williams wept when Padgett called him to his hotel room that night in November to tell him what the X-rays showed and that doctors feared the injury could end his career.

"I walked out of his room and cried in the hallway because I knew without him, you know, I knew it wasn't going to work," Williams recalled this week.

The Cardinals (27-8) were already lacking another pivotal inside player, 6-8 forward Juan Palacios, who tore a knee ligament on the second day of practice in October. In Padgett's case, this latest blow seemed especially cruel. He had already missed one season, under NCAA rules, after transferring from Kansas on the eve of his freshman year when Roy Williams, who had recruited him, bolted for North Carolina. Then, after his sophomore year, he underwent surgery on both knees.

Without a defining presence inside and plenty of inexperience on the perimeter, the Cardinals got off to a 5-3 start that was as welcome as locusts in basketball-crazed Kentucky.

"We got down on ourselves," junior guard Andre McGee said. "The city kind of got down on us. The talk in town, in the state, was that we were going to have a hard time making it to the NCAA tournament."

Padgett, whose grandfather, father and uncle all played college basketball, threw himself into his recovery, determined to get back in the lineup as soon as possible. He beat even the most optimistic timetable, returning for the Jan. 1 Big East opener against Cincinnati, contributing 13 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists in 26 minutes' work in Louisville's 58-57 loss.

Worried that Padgett was pushing himself too hard, Pitino took his captain aside and made a secret pact. After the first 15 minutes of practice each day, he told Padgett, he was going to start yelling at him and order him to sit as punishment. That way, Padgett could give his knees a rest, and Pitino's authority wouldn't be undercut by pampering a starter.

It wasn't long before Williams sleuthed out the ruse.

"Oh, he's got you resting again!" Williams whispered in Padgett's ear.

With Padgett and Palacios out of the lineup, the Cardinals still managed to play gritty defense. But their offense was rudderless and undisciplined.

"Everybody was running around like chickens with their head cut off," Williams said of the seven weeks without Padgett. "But he came back and started pushing people into the offense. And when Coach P ain't talking, he was talking."

Added McGee: "It was tough losing those guys early on. You cut off the head, everybody says the body will fall. Thankfully that didn't happen with us."

Still, Louisville hasn't yet faced a team as imposing as North Carolina, which is making its 23rd appearance in a regional final. The Tar Heels have reeled off 14 consecutive victories and been untouchable in the tournament, beating opponents by margins of 31, 39 and 21 points through the first three rounds.

But such margins are kind compared to the score Roy Williams's No. 2-ranked Kansas squad hung on Kentucky in December 1989, when its new basketball coach, Pitino, was struggling to rebuild a squad that had been decimated by NCAA sanctions. Williams's Jayhawks bolted to an 80-61 halftime lead and kept piling on for a 150-95 rout at Allen Fieldhouse.

Asked if he had any lingering ill will, Pitino said: "I try to forget bad things and remember the positive. I don't remember even coaching in Boston."