MIAMI - Another coach would've stood in a corridor at American Airlines Arena late Sunday afternoon and made a case why he, and no one else, should be Arizona's next basketball coach.
"I've just coached this team to two double-figure victories in the NCAA tournament," he might've said. "Do you know how hard that is? I'm the only coach in my league to get to the Sweet 16. What is it that I'm missing here? Where's the contract?"
Instead, as Russ Pennell stood outside Arizona's locker room, surrounded by a captive media audience, he was interrupted by his coaching soul mate, Mike Dunlap.
"Speak slowly and articulate your words, Hambone," said Dunlap.
And with that, Dunlap flipped a backpack over a shoulder and left the scene of the most improbable moment in a season of improbable moments: Arizona's 71-57, Sweet 16-clinching, do-you-believe-in-basketball-miracles victory over Cleveland State.
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At a time of the basketball season when laughs are in short supply, everybody laughed, especially "Hambone." The season that began as a dumpster fire has shot so far above expectations that it has gone into orbit. It is circling Planet Pinch-Me-It's-True.
"This hasn't been a situation where you sat down a few months ago and penciled in the Sweet 16," said UA athletic director Jim Livengood. "It's more like a made-for-TV movie, except nobody would buy it because they wouldn't believe it."
About the closest Pennell came to applying for Arizona's coaching vacancy was to say that he has not put his Oro Valley home on the market. The week in Miami was supposed to be a going-going-gone thing for Pennell and his staff. Instead, it morphed into a going-to-Indianapolis thing.
He has chosen to make this season about the Wildcats and not about the men who coach them. There's not an oversized ego on the bench; nobody has stepped forward to grab the credit. Could that be why a season that began with muddying images has become spotlessly clear?
As we have witnessed, the basketball gospel of Russ Pennell is such that the coach he quotes most isn't himself or some famous guy from his past, but rather, his father, Dewey, who sits beside him on Arizona's bench.
"When I was younger, my dad would tell me that one of his pet peeves were coaches who were always looking for the next job," Pennell said. "Do your job well and the next job will find you."
Consider Pennell found.
In tournament victories over Utah and Cleveland State, games that could accurately be labeled The Nic Wise Show (he has scored 50 points and is 17 of 17 in free throws), the Wildcats have become the Feel Good Story of the Year.
You can trace the success to Oct. 24, the day Dunlap declined to replace Lute Olson on an interim basis, sent his family back home to Denver and chose with all of his being to support Pennell.
Anything else, any ego vs. ego thing, any cover-my-own-backside approach, would've blown up in their faces. For that, Dunlap deserves serious admiration. His cooperation triggered this March success.
"We sat down, in a room by ourselves for two or three days, and honestly discussed our strategy," Dunlap said Sunday. "We refused to get negative because we knew the players were vulnerable. It's a tribute to Russ, because he's a very optimistic guy.
"We divided the coaching pie into quarters and decided that one guy wouldn't do any more than the other."
The October confusion was such, Pennell revealed Sunday, that he wanted to cancel the Nov. 1 Red-Blue Game. Nobody was ready and it showed. The annual scrimmage was cut short, tied at 41, because there weren't enough able-bodied players to endure the full 40 minutes.
And now that same team is bound for the Sweet 16.
Olson had informally suggested that Dunlap be his successor, but nobody got it in writing. But once Livengood announced he would search nationally for a coach, Dunlap got past the initial hurt and moved on.
"Geez, for me, once the decision was made, my whole thing was 'What can we do with this group?' " Dunlap said. "I didn't take it personally. The president said they wanted to get a coach for 10 years. I said I understood. This is a huge corporation with a huge tradition. The president was very clear about that.
"Did I like it? Of course, I didn't like it. But I made a full commitment. I knew it was just one chapter in a long book."
With Dunlap on board, in full support of Pennell, the Wildcats slowly moved forward. Dunlap designed the trap-and-press defense that took, among others, Gonzaga and Utah apart. Pennell gave Dunlap full voice at practice and in timeout sessions. It worked. It is working still.
"We've cranked it. We've absolutely cranked it," Dunlap said. "I've been immersed."
As the Wildcats left the arena Sunday afternoon, Dunlap was asked about his plans.
"I'm going to the Sweet 16," he said. "After that, I'll pack up the tent and head down the trail."
It will be a trail littered with happy memories.
