While there won’t be any former Virginia Cavaliers playing in the NBA Finals, there will be a Wahoo on the sidelines (R.I.P. the 2025 Cleveland Cavaliers). Rick Carlisle, the head coach of the Indiana Pacers, played two seasons for UVA. His Pacers have unexpectedly ripped through the Eastern Conference, and they’re four wins away from one of the most shocking Finals wins of all time.
Forty Years ago...
In 1981, 22-year-old Rick Carlisle transferred to UVA after two exceptional seasons at the University of Maine. He transferred before it was cool, and I don’t blame him at all. The year before, Ralph Sampson had led the ’Hoos to the Final Four, and in 1982 Sampson was entering the final season of one of the most dominant careers that any individual college player would ever achieve.
But sports are strange. Carlisle and the Cavaliers made it back to the Final Four the year after Ralph Sampson graduated. And it wasn’t your typical Final Four team.
Virginia finished 6th in the ACC earning a seven seed in the NCAA Tournament.
Their path to the Final Four was gritty: a one-point win over 10-seed Iona in the first round, a two-point overtime win over two seed Arkansas in round two, and a slightly less anxiety-inducing eight-point win over Syracuse in the Sweet Sixteen.
Then came a showdown with Bobby Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers with a trip to the Final Four on the line. With under 40 seconds left and UVA clinging to a 48–46 lead, Carlisle stepped to the free-throw line. After a 30-second delay due to a substitution issue, he calmly drained both shots, extending the lead to 50–46 — the most clutch free throws in program history until Kyle Guy came along.
Virginia punched their second-ever ticket to the Final Four in 1984, with Rick Carlisle as the team’s second-leading scorer (11.1 ppg).
Today...
On Thursday night, the Indiana Pacers will face off against the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. The Thunder are heavy favorites (-750 on FanDuel), but Carlisle’s been in this position before. Back in 2011, Carlisle’s Dallas Mavericks stunned the basketball world by upsetting LeBron James and the Miami Heat in 6 games to capture the franchise’s first ever NBA title.
A decade later, Carlisle parted ways with Dallas to return and coach Indiana (he coached the Pacers from 2003-07). Even through his 36-year NBA coaching career, jumping from city-to-city, Charlottesville still remains special to him. Just last year, he attended Tony Bennett’s retirement press conference and expressed gratitude for Bennett’s leadership, accomplishments, and their personal friendship.
But while Bennett built his legacy with slow-paced, defensive-minded basketball, Carlisle has done the opposite in Indiana. Carlisle has transformed this Indiana Pacers team by coaching a fast-paced, chaotic brand of basketball. Pacers games are a track meet. They want to get out in transition on misses and makes. They launch a lot of threes. They’ll harass the opposing point guard for 94-feet, all 24 seconds of the shot clock.
The Pacers star player — Tyrese Haliburton — has mastered the art of staying calm amidst the chaos. Haliburton’s been incredible this postseason, rising to the occasion in clutch moments time and time again. His game-saving shot in a wild comeback against the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals is just one of many highlights in this Cinderella run.
Carlisle has coached in the NBA since 1989, and yet this miraculous run he’s been on with the Indiana Pacers may be one of his greatest accomplishments.