Louisville fans might recognize some faces at the Final Four scorer's table Monday night

When you turn on the national championship Monday night, the faces at the scorer's table will look familiar if you're a Louisville basketball fan.

That's because Louisville's statistics crew, for every Final Four since the 1967 event at Freedom Hall, has been the team to handle the stats for college basketball's marquee weekend.

"You have to treat it like an honor," said Jason Bond, the technology specialist supervisor in Louisville's athletics department. "Everybody thinks we do it so well. We’ve been doing it so long that we’re familiar with everyone. The comfort level is a lot easier. I think the NCAA appreciates the continuity, but I also appreciate the honor of being able to do it. As long as we don’t screw it up, we have the chance to keep doing it."

Bond is part of the four-man Louisville crew that tabulates game statistics and punches them into a computer system that sends them out to the world. Scott Flavell, a facility operations manager, is with Bond in San Antonio this year, along with Patrick Crush and Jeff Peterman, who do stats for Louisville on the side.

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The athletics department's chief media relations officer, Kenny Klein, takes care of the logistics for the stat crew's trip and helps the NCAA's communications staff working the Final Four.

It's also a valuable networking weekend for his role as the Louisville basketball spokesman, Klein said.

It was Klein who introduced Louisville's computer system to the NCAA's stat collection process at the 1985 Final Four in Lexington, further solidifying the school as the go-to stat-keeper for the event.

Bond started working for the university in 1994, but his first Final Four was five years later in Tampa, Florida. He got the gig because he was familiar with the scoreboard system there — it was the same as the one used at Freedom Hall.

He began going every year starting in 2002.

"You get a break from the office," Bond said. "You see all the fans. You get to hear the school chants. I like seeing all that kind of stuff. You see the excitement of the fans. You start seeing familiar faces. It’s fun to see that kind of stuff. I like having our hotel near the Fan Fest or something where you can see the fans."

San Antonio, Bond said, is a good host city for the Final Four. Indianapolis ranks up there, too, he added.

It took some time for the crew to get used to the raised courts that are now commonplace at the event, which is now held in massive domes.

What goes into the actual stat-keeping?

The Louisville crew brings three cases with them to the event, carrying two printers, three laptops and some headsets. The NCAA fills in the gaps.

The four-man team has a designated typer who is flanked by one crew member focusing on the home team and another focusing on the visiting team. The fourth member is in charge of the shot chart.

They communicate in code at this point — 'J' is for jump shot, etc. The team rotates jobs, so each member knows how to do each job, and they are so familiar with each other's voices that they don't even need to clarify which team they are discussing.

"If I hear one particularly voice, I know I need to be putting it on the home or visitor side," Bond said. "It’s good to have some familiarity. We’ve got a good nucleus."

Bond laughed thinking about how one person used to type stats into a typewriter after they were handwritten.

Now everything is done by computer and sent through StatBroadcast, a stat-keeping software used at various levels across multiple sports.

"What’s funny," Bond said, "is all the people who still want the stats printed out on paper during the timeouts."

Jeff Greer: 502-582-4044; jgreer@courierjournal.com; Twitter: @jeffgreer_cj. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/jeffg.