LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – Rick Pitino is right on schedule.

College basketball’s great rebuilder needed four seasons to guide Louisville from crumbling program to the Final Four, just like he did at Kentucky in the early 1990s. He got Providence there in two years in the mid-1980s and is the first coach to take three teams this far in the NCAA tournament.

The Cardinals (33-4), back in the Final Four for the first time since they won it all in 1986, play Illinois (36-1) in St. Louis on Saturday.

“It happens so fast,” Pitino said. “The NCAA starts, the season ends so abruptly. It goes on, and you don’t expect anything. We haven’t really been able to catch our breath. It’s been a great ride.

It nearly ended in Albuquerque, where West Virginia put Louisville in a 20-point hole and led by 13 at halftime.

Pitino wasn’t sure the Cardinals would come back, but they defied the 5,300-foot altitude and rallied from a double-digit deficit for the fourth time this season in a 93-85 victory.

“They’re very resilient, very tough-minded,” he said of his team. “Whatever has made them tough, they’re tough. I’m just a pussycat following their coattails. I just sit back and marvel at what they accomplish.”

And Pitino sees them only getting better. The Cardinals have won 22 of their last 23 and new stars keep emerging.

Senior guard Larry O’Bannon scored 24 second-half points against the Mountaineers and has averaged 18.6 points in Louisville’s last nine games, all victories.

Freshman forward Juan Palacios had 11 rebounds in the second-round win over Georgia Tech and has averaged nine rebounds in the postseason. Sophomore Brandon Jenkins played 24 minutes last Saturday and blocked a shot in the final seconds of regulation.

“Our players have been like a blue chip stock. They’ve just been going like this the whole time,” Pitino said, raising his right arm.

The potential seemed pretty shaky early in the season. Before it even began, Pitino was kicking himself for recruiting high school stars Sebastian Telfair and Donta Smith, who jilted him to jump straight to the NBA.

Another incoming prep phenom, Brian Johnson, missed the season because of a recurring knee problem that required surgery.

At some point during the year, every Cardinal had an injury. The maladies ranged from head to toe – from Palacios’ scratched cornea to the stress fractures in Otis George’s right foot.

Somehow, the Cardinals kept winning.

“That’s what makes this season so fulfilling,” Pitino said. “Everything you believe in as a coach, every principle, every dream, has come true. You have to overcome injuries and most of the times, you lose.

“This year, the guys wouldn’t take any losses.”

Pitino planned to meet with his players on Monday night and explain what they should expect from the busy week.

He wasn’t going to offer any profound advice.

“Have fun, enjoy it. It’s a once in a lifetime experience,” Pitino said. “It’s like being a great pianist and going to Carnegie Hall. It’s a great act going to Broadway. It’s what we all dream about.”

Pitino will be coaching in his fifth Final Four, but the first without his brother-in-law and best friend, Billy Minardi, who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

Several family members will meet Pitino in St. Louis. Pitino’s wife and Minardi’s sister, Joanne, made sure Billy Minardi wasn’t forgotten as the Cardinals were dueling West Virginia.

Joanne Pitino was watching from the family’s Louisville home, where a portrait of her brother hangs in the living room. When Pitino returned from Albuquerque on Saturday night, he noticed the portrait was sitting in a chair.

The next morning, Pitino asked his wife why she had taken the picture down. She said she propped it up in the chair, facing the television.

“She said, They were shooting so well and you guys were out of it. Only he could pull us through this,”‘ Pitino said.

AP-ES-03-28-05 1932EST