Ford guides EKU into Kentucky showdown

RICHMOND, Ky. -- When Travis Ford became Eastern Kentucky's basketball coach five years ago, he had no idea how bad the program was.

Soon after taking the job, Ford had only two scholarship players on his roster and the school's hoops tradition was practically nonexistent. The Colonels had won nine games combined during the two previous seasons. They hadn't had a winning record since the 1992-93 season or even so much as an eight-game winning streak since 1965.

Ford, a former Kentucky point guard who played under Rick Pitino, quickly learned that coaching at Eastern Kentucky -- which long has been in the shadow of Kentucky, a storied program with seven NCAA titles about 25 miles away -- would be the challenge of his young lifetime.

"It wasn't like rebuilding a program," Ford said. "It was more like starting one. It was bad in every aspect."

Now, the Colonels (22-8) are working on arguably the best season in school history, one that includes an Ohio Valley Conference tournament title and will end in the NCAA tournament for the first time in 26 years.

Ford will be facing his former school when the Colonels face Kentucky (25-5) on Thursday in a first-round game in the Austin regional. The Colonels, seeded 15th, will be a huge underdog against the second-seeded Wildcats.

"I've played in Final Fours and won SEC championships and played in many NCAA tournaments," Ford said. "Those were incredible experiences. But I don't know if I've ever worked at anything as hard as I have worked at this, to get the program back to the NCAA tournament. To do it with these guys makes it extra, extra special. It's very gratifying."

Ford played one season at Missouri before transferring to Kentucky, where he played until 1994 and helped the Wildcats reach the 1993 Final Four.

He ranks second in Kentucky history in career free-throw shooting (88.2 percent) and ninth in career assists. He holds the school's single-game record for assists with 15, set against Eastern Kentucky in 1993.

His success as a player continued at his first coaching stop, at Campbellsville (Ky.). He went 67-31 in three seasons at the NAIA school, including a 28-3 record during the 1998-99 season. He took the Eastern Kentucky job in 2000.

Joanne Glasser became the university's president a year later. She said she quickly learned there would be no quick fixes for Ford's program, but that didn't bother her.

"Travis and I talked, and we had a game plan," Glasser said. "He had my commitment that I was going to support him and he would have my confidence for four years to go through his recruiting classes. He needed the time to build his own team. He did just that."

Ford said he built the program one recruit at a time. Michael Haney, a 6-6 senior forward from Ford's hometown of Madisonville in western Kentucky, was one of the first players to buy Ford's recruiting pitch, which went something like this: come to Eastern Kentucky and you'll play -- a lot.

"We were fighting just to get into the OVC tournament," recalled Haney, a first-team All-OVC pick who's the team's second-leading scorer (13.5 points per game) and top rebounder (8.3). "But each year, we've improved little by little. When you win more games, more players want to join the program."

Ford went 7-19 in his first season, winning only one OVC game. A 7-20 campaign followed in 2001-02. The Colonels improved to 11-17 the next season and 14-15 last season, reaching the OVC tournament semifinals. But still, Ford's career record at Eastern Kentucky entering the season was 39-71.

This season, Eastern Kentucky finished second in a balanced OVC during the regular season. A first-round OVC tournament win over Tennessee State gave the Colonels their first 20-win season since 1978-79 and only their second since the 1946-47 season.

Wins over Southeast Missouri and Austin Peay, the latter in the OVC title game, broke the school's single-season record for wins.

Ford's former college coach, who's now at Louisville, speaks with pride about him.

"It's very difficult at Eastern, looking at how long it's been since they've won," Pitino said. "He's done it the right way -- two to three wins more each season and now building it to a conference championship."

Pitino also says he's not surprising what Ford has done.

"He was a point guard with a lot of intelligence. He was a leader," Pitino said. "He understood the game."

The Colonels' NCAA tournament appearance will be their sixth -- they also made it in 1953, 1959, 1965, 1972 and 1979 -- but they've never won a tournament game. The 1979 team lost 97-81 to Tennessee in the first round.

"These guys don't even know how big this is right now," Ford said.

Eastern Kentucky's women also won their OVC tournament, making EKU one of only a handful of schools to have both its men's and women's teams playing in the NCAA tournament.

Glasser, the school president, now has a quandary -- how to make all the tournament games for both of her teams.

"That's a challenge, but one I'm really looking forward to," she said. "That's a great position to be in, don't you think?"