LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Princeton was headed to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1967.
The No. 15 seed Tigers were fresh off a stunning blowout upset of No. 7 seed Missouri in last week’s NCAA Tournament second-round game in Sacramento, and Mitch Henderson had an important phone call to make.
Before boarding the team flight back to New Jersey, the 47-year-old Princeton coach dialed up Bill Carmody.
Carmody, who took over for the legendary Pete Carril in 1996 and coached Henderson at Princeton from ’96-’98, also gave Henderson his first taste of coaching, hiring him at Northwestern in 2000 for an 11-year stint as an assistant coach before Henderson took over at Princeton in 2011.
When Henderson’s call came into Carmody, who’s now retired and living on the Jersey Shore, the 71-year-old former coach said, “What the hell are you calling me for?’’
“I’m here because of you,’’ Henderson told him.
“Bill Carmody means everything to me,’’ Henderson told The Post Thursday. “My dad passed away of a heart attack when I was a student at Princeton, and Bill came to my dorm room and took me to the airport. He’s like a father to me. He gave me my chance starting coaching.’’
This is the first thing that draws you to Henderson: his humility.
Henderson, whose Tigers play sixth-seed Creighton in Friday’s Sweet 16 game at 9 p.m. in the KFC Yum! Center, has not forgotten where he came from nor the people who’ve helped paved the road to this magic carpet ride he’s on at the moment.
Beginning with Carmody.
“When he called, I said, ‘You beat Arizona, you beat Missouri, you should be out having a pop or two,’ ’’ Carmody told The Post by phone Thursday from his home in Spring Lake. “That call meant a lot to me.’’
Adding to Henderson’s marvelous March story, too, is he grew up not far from where Friday night’s game will be played.
Henderson grew up in Vincennes, Ind., a 115-mile shot out Route 150 northwest of Louisville. He was a 12-time varsity letter winner in basketball, baseball and football at Culver Military Academy, which is a 230-mile drive north of Louisville, straight up I-65 through Indianapolis.
It was in Lexington, where Henderson’s family moved when he was 12 for his dad’s job, where the call came into his parents’ home from a Yankees scout informing them that they’d drafted their son with the 24th pick of the 29th round (815th overall) in 1994.
On Thursday, in the bowels of the arena just before his team was to take the court for its shootaround, Henderson chuckled when thinking back to that phone call and that potential fork in the road in his life.
“I’ll never forget those old phones that were on the wall, and my mom answered and said, ‘The Yankees are on the phone,’ ’’ he recalled. “I was like, ‘I’m going to go to the Yankees.’ And my dad was like, ‘You’re not going [to the Yankees], you’re going to Princeton.’ ’’
Then, Henderson said, the scout over the phone told him, “ ‘Go to Princeton,’ and my dad was like, ‘That’s my kind of scout.’ ’’
With that, the scout hung up and Henderson’s major league baseball career was over before it started.
“I was dumb enough to want to do it; I thought I could play,’’ Henderson said.
“But you get lucky sometimes. I walked into Coach Carril’s arms.’’
Even though Henderson didn’t know it at the time, because he was a 20-something kid enjoying his college experience, it was the curmudgeonly Carril who first shaped his mind as a future coach. Then it was Carmody who cultivated that mind that is sure to give Creighton its share of headaches on Friday night.
After Henderson graduated from Princeton in ’98, he settled on a day job as a research associate at a firm in San Francisco. Then Carmody called to offer him a job as an assistant at Northwestern and Henderson fled back to basketball faster that he used to move taking those famous backdoor passes in Carril’s motion system.
“Pete used to say, ‘You Princeton guys, you’re dumber than I thought with all these degrees and you want to coach,’ ’’ Carmody recalled. “I needed someone who knew the stuff inside and out. I knew Mitch had energy, I knew he was smart and that’s how it started.’’
And here we are.
“It took a lot of time to get to this point, but I’m really happy that I can feel how happy everybody is,’’ Henderson said. “I feel it deeply. It’s hard to put into words. It makes me very emotional.’’
These are the moments that move Henderson most, because for him it’s about everyone else.
“His humility,’’ Carmody said, “is just unbelievable.’’
Princeton’s three keys to victory
Watch the big men
The most fascinating matchup in this game is between Princeton’s 6-foot-8, 219-pound “point center’’ from Newcastle, England, Tosan Evbuomwan, who handles the ball more than anyone on the team and leads the Tigers in scoring with 14.8 points per game and averages 6.3 rebounds and 4.8 assists.
He’ll be banging with Creighton’s 7-1, 260-pound center Ryan Kalkbrenner, who averages 15.7 points to lead the Bluejays and 6.2 rebounds.
“Kalkbrenner is a very difficult kid in his own right, but Tosan is like Grant Hill,’’ Princeton coach Mitch Henderson said. “He faces the rim and is really good in space. And we won’t see a better passer like him in Princeton for a really long time after this.’’
It’ll be a great contrast in styles between the two big men as Kalbrenner is the Big East Defensive Player of the Year and averages fewer than two fouls per game.
Watch the 3-point line
Creighton is a streaky shooting team from long distance. In recent games, the Bluejays were 24-for-54 (44.4 percent) in wins over Villanova and Baylor but just 10-for-37 (27 percent) against Xavier and N.C. State.
Creighton is ranked 99th in the country in 3-point percentage. It is, though, the best defense Princeton has faced all year, and the Tigers rely on their 3-point shooting, particularly from guards Matt Allocco, Caden Pierce and Ryan Langborg.
Princeton has to have a proficient shooting game from the outside to upset Creighton.
Depth and free throws
Princeton relies on its bench more than Creighton, which essentially plays its five starters and sprinkles in a couple subs.
But the Creighton subs don’t provide a lot of scoring or rebounding while Princeton’s Keeshawn Kellman (8.0 points, 4.6 rebounds) is a key contributor.
Creighton is an excellent free-throw shooting team, with four of its five starters averaging at least 78.6 percent from the stripe. The Princeton starters are not as accurate, averaging 71.4 percent compared to Creighton’s 78 percent.
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Mark Cannizzaro
