It was a Cardinal curtain call tonight as Louisville closes out the Big East in fine fashion. Cards showed a lot of heart and determination tonight overcoming a 16 point deficit to beat the Orange 78-61. With the win our Cards are back-to-back Big East champions and have now won ten games straight heading into the NCAA tournament. Also by winning this game they are now predicted to be the number one overall seed when the selections are made tomorrow. Tonight put a bow on a terrific Big East run for the Cardinals. They have been in the conference for 8 seasons and have won 95 games, had 3 second place finishes, 2 first place finishes and finished with the tourney crown three times. They finish the Big East series with Syracuse leading 8 to 4 and now lead the overall series 15 to 7. And the Louisville Cardinals will now be known as the final original Big East champions.
You will not see a comeback like you did tonight very often. In fact tonight set a new record for a comeback in the championship game of the Big East tournament. It takes a special group of young men to do what this team did to win their 2nd and back-to-back Big East crown. Yes Cardinal fans legends are made in New York City and tonight this Cardinal basketball team became legendary.
The Cardinal defense struggled in the first half allowing the Syracuse players to get to the rim and allowed them to shoot uncontested shots. A Louisville team that had 58 deflections on Thursday night didn’t have one in the first half of this game. And Cuse was dominating the glass. The Cards went into their locker room down 13 points and nothing going their way. Rick Pitino said instead of yelling and screaming at them he simply just told them that “it’s up to you to get it done.” And get it done they did. After coming out of the locker room they got down by 16 points in the second half, but from 15:59 to 2:06 in the 2nd half Louisville outscored Syracuse 44-9. During that run they held the Orange to one field goal and 7 free-throws. They would outscore Cuse 56 to 26 in the second half. The Cards defense would end up answering the bell forcing Cuse into 19 turnovers and getting 11 steals. During their remarkable 10 game winning stretch the Louisville defense allowed opponents 54.6 points on 36.4 percent shooting while forcing 17.7 turnovers, including 10.4 steals.
The MVP of this game was Montrezl Harrell. A star was born in MSG tonight as he had a unreal stat line of 20 points, 7 rebounds and 1 blocked shot. And this doesn’t come as a surprise to me. If you have been reading my stuff all season you know that I have sang this guys praises since the red and white scrimmages. The kid just has a motor in him that is something you can’t teach. He put this Cardinal team on his back tonight and this won’t be the last time we see it happen. Wayne might be considered the best recruit of the Rick Pitino era but I think this kid is gonna have something to say about that.
Russ Smith had some trouble on the offensive end of the court due to the length of the Syracuse players but he was still very disruptive on the defensive end and had a very steady game. He has really grown over the season and has learned to play within himself.
Peyton Siva was named the most outstanding player of the Big East tourney for the second straight year. He shares that honor with Patrick Ewing as the only 2 players to ever do that. He was the floor general again tonight for the Cards along with his 11 points he had 8 assist and 4 steals. He set a new record in this tourney with 29 steals. Really glad for him and I don’t think we are done seeing amazing things from him.
Gorgui has had a quiet week in New York but tonight he did a great job when he finally got settled into the game. He started hitting that little 15 footer and was great at distributing the ball against that zone. He made some incredible passes. He would finish with 9 points, 9 boards and 8 assist. He is the best passing big man that Pitino has had since David Padgett.
How about my X-Factors Kevin Ware and Luke Hancock? I said that these guys would be very important to this Cardinal team in the post season and they haven’t let me down. There’s no way this Louisville team would have won the Big East crown without them. They have been great all week and tonight when this team needed a shot or a big play one of these guys stepped up. Tonight it was Kevin that hit two clutch 3 point shots and Luke grabbed 6 big rebounds and got to the free-throw line. These guys are a big part of this teams success and they’re going to be big down the stretch.
We are still waiting for Chane and Wayne to really get it going. They had steady performances tonight but both are capable of much more. This team is great but with them playing up to their true potential it will be epic.
Just a great night to be a Louisville Cardinal fan. Seems like I’ve been saying that a lot this year. This program is really rolling right now and there isn’t anything else I would rather be a part of. Looking forward to getting out to these NCAA games and being a part of this remarkable run. Hopefully the next four weeks are going to be great and if they go the way I hope they do this Cardinal fan will be able to die a happy man. We still got one Cardinal Curtain Call left and in the words of Peyton Siva “no sleep til Atlanta baby.”
