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Contrary to what ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Wildcat basketball history might suggest, the conversations were actually pleasant.

Fun, even.

“He was really a good guy,� Olson said of Tarkanian, who died Wednesday at a Las Vegas hospital at the age of 84 after battling a variety of health issues in recent years. “He had a lot of personality.�

The two hit it off after some of Olson’s players went on to play at Long Beach State under Tark in 1970, and they remained intertwined, sometimes heatedly, for decades while ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ and UNLV battled on and off the court in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Some of it is pure ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ basketball folklore: The one-point loss UNLV handed UA in the 1989 Sweet 16, the trash-talking, the UA locker room display that the Rebels autographed, and, of course, the recruiting battles that led to Tarkanian’s infamous “Midnight Luteâ€� moniker for Olson.

Tension was inevitable.

“It was always personal. But it’s all business when you’re competing to be the West’s best program,� said Pac-12 Networks analyst Kevin O’Neill, an assistant under Olson during the late 1980s. “It was a great rivalry in recruiting and on the court.�

On the court, UNLV won four of five games when Olson and Tarkanian matched up, and none was more painful for Olson than the 1989 Sweet 16, when Kenny Lofton tried to draw a charge from Anderson Hunt while guarding him in the final seconds.

There was no call, so while Lofton fell to the floor, Hunt was left alone to hit the game-winner. That ended the season for the No. 1-ranked Wildcats, and the college career of legendary UA forward Sean Elliott.

“Probably the biggest disappointment I had,� Olson said Wednesday, still convinced Hunt pushed Lofton. “If our player had stayed upright, (Hunt) couldn’t have gotten a shot off.�

A year later, when UNLV’s eventual national champions beat the Wildcats at Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack Center, Hunt drew more notoriety. This time it was for yapping at UA coaches while sliding into the UA bench, according to Star archives, although UNLV assistant coach Cle Edwards said one of UA’s coaches started it by calling Hunt a “jerk.�

Olson never scheduled a game with Tarkanian again.

“It was just that there was a big difference in philosophy between the two of us, so I just felt at that time it was best to cut off that series,� Olson said.

Tarkanian left UNLV in 1992 after a long battle with the school’s administration, and by the time the UA-UNLV series resumed in 2006-07, he had coached the San Antonio Spurs for 20 games in 1992 and Fresno State for seven seasons before retiring in 2002.

But, even without a game in 1990-91, tension remained between the Wildcats and Rebels. UNLV played first-weekend NCAA tournament games at Mc-Kale Center and, as the No. 1 seed, was assigned to UA’s locker room.

Inside it, the Rebels took note of a half-basketball on prime display — and signed it.

It was a humorous yet “disrespectful� move, UA center Brian Williams said at the time. But Olson’s longtime assistant, Jim Rosborough, said Wednesday that it blew over quickly.

“They signed the ball and trashed the locker room, but to be honest I think that was more blown out of proportion,� Rosborough said. “None of our players were very concerned about it.�

Ill will in the recruiting world tended to last longer. Especially when it came to Tom Tolbert, the junior college star whose recruitment led to Tarkanian accusing “Midnight Lute� of nabbing his guys at the last hour.

The story goes that Tark had a commitment from the highly regarded junior college star, but that Tolbert changed his mind after meeting with UA coaches the night before he signed in 1987. But Olson said he had a commitment from Tolbert even before he committed to UNLV.

“Tom said he had a trip scheduled to UNLV and he was going to take some of his friends over for the weekend,� Olson said. “When that happened, Tark had Tom in his office and he said, ‘Well, are you coming?’ Tom said, ‘Oh yeah, I’m coming.’

“I didn’t think he was really serious. But that’s why I got the nickname Midnight Lute, that I swept in and stole Tom Tolbert. (Tarkanian) was very upset about losing Tolbert, but I never did tell him we had a commitment before he went to UNLV for his visit.�

Before a game with UNLV in 2007-08, when he was UA’s interim head coach, O’Neill said he would joke about Tolbert and other craziness with former Tarkanian assistants he’d sometimes see around the NBA.

“It was one of those things where we’d say, ‘Did we really say those things to each other and do those things? Did we really have Tom Tolbert in a bathroom at Colorado Springs, threatening him that he’d never play (at UNLV)?’ � O’Neill said. “It was just the way it was.�

Reached Wednesday, O’Neill said he remembered that the UA just kept recruiting Tolbert hard.

“I don’t know exactly what changed, but that was a big recruit,� O’Neill said. “And then to get Matt (Othick) from the city of Las Vegas was a big coup for us.�

Othick, a guard from Las Vegas, was a curious story because he couldn’t sign a second binding letter of intent (his first, to New Mexico, was disregarded when it was discovered he did not date the letter). Othick committed to UNLV but later flopped to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.

Othick told the Star in 2002 it was simply about playing time, since he found Greg Anthony had been promised a starting point guard role at UNLV.

But back during the early days in Long Beach, Olson actually wanted his guys to play for Tark. And even when he took over Long Beach State for the 1973-74 season, when his 24-2 team was banned from the postseason because of infractions found during Tarkanian’s reign, Olson said he did not resent Tarkanian for it.

He blamed the LBSU administration for telling him there would be no sanctions before he took the job.

“The thing was, Bobbi (Olson’s first wife) heard the wives saying that ‘We knew we were going to get it but we didn’t think it would be that bad,’ � Olson said. “That was an indication they weren’t straight up with me. So I left, even though it was one of the best years in Long Beach State history.�

Four decades later, the two coaches met again in Southern California. But this time there was no recruiting, no games, no trash talking and nobody watching.

Jerry Tarkanian and Lute Olson were just hanging out at the Del Mar racetrack, a meeting arranged by ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ car dealer and horse owner Paul Weitman, a longtime friend of Olson’s who had also come to know Tarkanian well through horse racing.

“When Lute would come to the track, I’d tell Tark that Lute was coming so he could talk to him,� Weitman said. “I would take them back there and they’d talk. They would tease each other about things. That was good for both of them.

“I think they both mellowed a bit. Both of them were fierce competitors when they were playing each other, and that’s the way it should be.�

So for Olson and Tarkanian, the past was just the past. But their relationship and history is forever.

Weitman should know. The name he gave to one of his most successful race horses, after all, was “Midnight Lute.�