Wild Cards

Some players make the game of basketball look easy. Reece Gaines is not one of them.

Louisville's senior point guard is an advertisement for manic exertion. There is no gliding to the basket or waltzing through the lane. Instead, the 6'6", 205-pound Gaines hurtles up the floor like a runaway semi, frenetically dribbling. When he rises to shoot, he doesn't jump so much as he springs back from the defender. On drives to the basket he opens his eyes wide and puffs out his cheeks, as if he is literally trying to blow by opponents. On defense he stays in front of his man—and, seemingly, on either side of him as well, scurrying back and forth while slashing the air with his arms. During the second half of the Cardinals' 77-71 win over Cincinnati on Feb. 5, Gaines was working so furiously on defense that when he tried to quickly change direction, he stumbled backward. Rather than fall and risk losing his man, he dropped into a near split. "I'm just a full-speed guy," says Gaines. "My goal is to wear people down."

Gaines's all-effort, all-the-time style, his playmaking and his clutch shooting have made him a leading candidate to win the Wooden Award as national player of the year. He is the embodiment of a revitalized Louisville squad that at week's end had won 17 games in a row by following coach Rick Pitino's gospel of defense, intensity and hustle. Entering the season the Cardinals weren't expected to do more than squeeze onto the outside ledge of the NCAA tournament bracket, but they have become the top team in Conference USA and a strong contender for the national title. After beating Houston 81-55 last Saturday, Louisville improved to 18-1 and on Monday jumped to No. 2 in the nation in the AP poll.

What's more, the players have not only clicked in Pitino's system but also taken on their coach's mind-set, as evidenced by their glum locker room demeanor following the inartistic victory over the Bearcats. "We're just going to try and learn from a win like this," said junior guard Bryant Northern, sounding eerily like the voice of Pitino channeled through a 20-year-old.

Much of the credit for the team's success clearly must go to Pitino, who in his second season at the school has turned around a struggling program, just as he did at Boston University, Providence and Kentucky. (The Cardinals were 12-19 in 2000-01, their last season under Denny Crum.) But it is Gaines who has led the team on the court. At week's end he was playing 32.3 minutes a game—nearly unheard of in Pitino's wind-sprint-tempo attack—and was averaging 18 points and 5.4 assists while shooting 47%, in the process emerging, improbably, as one of the country's best point guards.

Gaines began the season as Louisville's shooting guard, but after five games junior college transfer Prileu Davis wasn't panning out at the point, and Pitino asked Gaines to take over. For a senior who had averaged 21 points the year before and was not only eyeing the NBA but also accustomed to the limelight accorded a top scorer, it was a big sacrifice—like asking Bono if he wouldn't mind drumming so someone else could sing.

But Gaines was game. Growing up in Madison, Wis., he had always handled the ball, ever since his father, Clyde, who played at Wisconsin from 1977-78 through to '80-81, had taught him to dribble at age three. When Reece chose Louisville—over Maryland and his father's alma mater—it was in part for the chance to start at point guard right away, which he did his first two seasons, under Crum. But when Pitino arrived, one of his first moves was to take the ball out of Gaines's hands.

So last season Gaines played shooting guard, and he shot early and often. But as the Cardinals' only solid offensive option, he soon saw box-and-ones, triangle-and-twos and other geometric defensive alignments that even Euclid couldn't have envisioned. Louisville finished the season 19-13 and made the NIT, but the team was too reliant on Gaines.

This season help arrived in 6'10" senior center Marvin Stone, who sat out last season after transferring from Kentucky and who has added a much-needed post presence on both ends of the court. More reinforcements came in freshmen sharpshooters Taquan Dean and Francisco Garcia, the latter of whom tied a school record against Cincinnati with eight threes.

At first the return to the point wasn't all that smooth for Gaines; for instance he kept forgetting to hang back and take the inbounds pass. So Pitino showed him tapes of Jason Kidd, another tall point guard, and worked with him on his weaknesses—his dribbling while running at full speed and a tendency to overpenetrate before passing. By January, Gaines was in the groove, and against Southern Mississippi on Jan. 29 he tallied his first double double of the season.