Kentucky and Arizona need attention hires, and a lot of attention

Arizona defeated Kentucky in overtime to win the 1997 national title, and here we are 12 years later talking about the Wildcats again in the Final Four: Villanova’s Wildcats.

Sitting on the sidelines, under pardon-our-dust reconstruction, trying to make dollars (for some coach’s agent) and sense of it all, are Arizona and Kentucky.

Both desperately seek the attention hires that will keep their names on the tip of Dick Vitale’s tongue.

Kentucky on Tuesday made one, hiring Memphis Coach John Calipari. Meanwhile, Arizona’s search continues.

Both are fascinating, but completely different Wildcat situations -- and maybe die-hard Arizona fans don’t even realize this yet.

Kentucky basketball is Kentucky basketball and will be for as long as the sky is green and the grass is blue.

Arizona basketball, for 25 years, has been one man, Coach Lute Olson, and what it is after him is what Arizona is about to find out.

Kentucky fans stay awake trying to figure out ways to get the five national championships that will get them to 12, one ahead of UCLA.

Kentucky needs to be first.

Kentucky fans might not run over their mothers to win another national title, but they might run over yours.

Once, an airline pilot flying over the state couldn’t figure out why so many lights were on after midnight. Turned out that the Wildcats were playing a West Coast game and fans were up listening to famed announcer Caywood Ledford’s broadcast.

I remember being in Lexington a decade ago and tuning in then-coach Rick Pitino’s weekly radio show. Kentucky fans kept calling to complain about the blue in Kentucky’s new uniform being too close to North Carolina’s blue.

At one point, Pitino interrupted, “I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense. It shows you have nothing to do with your time.”

And his point was . . . ?

A recession in Kentucky is what’s going on now -- two years of Billy Gillispie and a 40-27 record leading to no NCAA tournament for the first time since 1991.

Kentucky will never tolerate this. The coach in Lexington is only the keeper of the flame, to be dislodged at any cost, at any time, for the betterment of . . . now.

Paying Calipari $35 million over eight years, even in these tough economic times, is considered “champ” change.

Kentucky is Alabama football, a program lost in a perpetual time warp and flush with irrational exuberance.

Arizona is Florida State football, where the question is: What becomes of us after Bobby Bowden retires?

Bowden, like Olson, singularly made the program what it is.

Kentucky is a group project: It doesn’t care how silly it looks jettisoning coaches left and right because all that matters is getting it right -- eventually.

Tubby Smith, the coach responsible for Kentucky’s seventh national title, resigned under the pressure of trying to win the eighth.

Kentucky made a horrible hire in Gillispie, who didn’t understand being Kentucky’s coach was as much a public relations job as it was about Xs and O’s.

So now Kentucky has hired Calipari, who has everything in life except a national title. Calipari is perfect for Lexington. He can handle the press (full-court), the press (media), and the stress (daily).

He’ll bring in players, back-slap boosters and sell Kentucky like soap. Arizona’s future, we’re not so sure about.

The school’s first succession plan involved replacing Olson with assistant Kevin O’Neill, named interim coach last season after Olson took a season-long break for personal reasons. When Olson decided he was coming back this season, O’Neill was forced out.

O’Neill is a good coach, but could you imagine Kentucky hiring a guy who once went 5-25 at Northwestern?

As it turned out, though, Olson didn’t return. He stepped down for good, under doctor’s orders, right before the start of this season.

Interim coach Russ Pennell got to borrow the Lamborghini for a season and led Arizona to its 25th straight NCAA tournament and a surprising Sweet 16 appearance. The run ended last weekend with a wipeout loss to Louisville.

Pennell knew from the start he wasn’t the long-term, “big-name” answer for Arizona.

Question to Pennell after Louisville: “Uncertain future for you?”

Pennell: “It’s pretty certain.” (Laughter.)

Arizona’s best hope now, ironically, may be to land Pitino, who is among the few men out there capable of extending Olson’s “coach-as-star” legacy.

Arizona has to hope any pushing-60, big-name coach it hires is coming to win, not play golf.

The Tucson Wildcats are on the brink of possible oblivion.

Junior stars Jordan Hill and Chase Budinger are probably bound for the NBA, leaving the prospect of the school’s first losing season since 1983-84, Olson’s first.

The pressure is on, for once, in Tucson. In Lexington, pressure rises each day.

With the sun.

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chris.dufresne@latimes.com