By Billy Garland

Ever been curious how the 1986 Cards might stack up against the 1991 Runnin’ Rebels of UNLV?
Now you get the chance to see.
With Electronic Arts’ release of their newest college basketball video game, “NCAA ‘09,” two University of Louisville men’s basketball teams have been immortalized as some of the greatest in history.
“These Cardinals teams will be features in our Tournament of Legends game mode,” said Connor Dougan, an associate producer for the game. “This is a tournament mode where you can play as or against any of the 64 best teams of all time. All of the greats will be featured in this tournament from the UCLA teams from the 60s and 70s to the UNLV running Rebels of the early 90s – not to mention the great Louisville teams in the 80s.”
The game has brought back many legendary Cardinal players such as Darrell Griffith, Rodney McCray and Pervis Ellison.
According to Dougan, outfitting the players with era appropriate uniforms and retro hair styles was a challenge.
“We did have to create a lot of classic uniforms and hair styles to accurately capture the old time look,” Dougan said. “So that means we added the short shorts, the bigger afros and we also have the old school teams wearing the classic Converse Chuck Taylors.”
In order to provide the most accurate depiction of the teams, the designers had to have the game represent the athletes. To accomplish this, the design team looked for help from ESPN and Blue Ribbon Basketball Yearbook.
“The people at Blue ribbon really helped us with making sure we had the entire player team rated correctly.
We used the people at Blue Ribbon to help get us info on each player’s strengths and weaknesses as well as used season statistics to formulate our player ratings.”
Current day teams are available for play in the ‘09 NCAA basketball release as well.
Dougan admits, however, that it is hard for current day teams to match up with the historical teams. He also adds that the classic teams were given “a lot of love in the stats department.”
While the game, like its predecessors, grants the temporary escape into the body of the player’s favorite athletes, Dougan also realizes that it gives a player the chance to tease out some of the ultimate college basketball hypotheticals.
“For me it’s the opportunity to live out the classic arguments of sports.” Dougan said. “We all talk about how one team from a specific era would match up with a team from another era. Well now you have the opportunity to play it out in NCAA Basketball ‘09.”