Russ Smith hit a clutch shot this past weekend to beat arch rival UC at the buzzer. It’s one of those moments that Louisville fans will remember forever. He has also been racking up the mid-season honors; in just the last few weeks being named one of 30 mid-season finalist for the Naismith Player of the Year Award, and was added to the finalist list for the Senior CLASS Award. Russ has also moved himself into the top 10 in the Louisville record books in several categories including #10 in Scoring, #2 in steals, #10 in FG attempts, and #4 in made free-throws. This season he is averaging 17.5 points a game, 4.5 assist a game, and 1.9 steals a game to lead the team.
Russ had a dream season last year for our Cards and was arguably the best player in the country. He averaged 18.7 points per game while shooting 41.4% from the field, 2.9 assist per game, 3.3 rebounds per game and 2.1 steals per game. His regular season success carried over into the post season scoring 134 points in the NCAA tournament to help lead the Cards to a National Title. He now has 196 career points in the NCAA Tournament, 5th most in Louisville’s history. As coach Pitino said in his post game comments after the USF game. Russ has two Big East titles, back-to-back Final Fours, and a National Title. What other senior in the country can say that?
This coming from a player who didn’t play in 10 of the Cardinals’ final 13 games as a freshman and a former 2 star recruit coming out of high school. Things got so bad for Russ during his freshman year that he was thinking about leaving the Louisville campus until former Cardinal Rakeem Buckles talked him into giving it a second chance. Russ took his good friends advice and decided to make the best of his opportunity. And make the best of it he has. His name will now be etched forever in Cardinal lore. It’s not very often that you get to see a player like this come from virtually nowhere to become a superstar, but that’s what has happened during Smiths four years of college basketball and it has been great to witness such an extraordinary rise.
If it weren’t for a Louisville roster depleted by injuries two seasons ago, Rick Pitino might have never been forced to figure out a way to best utilize the available pieces he did have. One of those pieces was Russ Smith, and the way Rick figured out how to utilize Russ’s skills and off set his weaknesses was nothing short of coaching genius. Russ also deserves a lot of credit for the hard work and dedication he has put in over the last three years to reach that max potential. Hopefully he will add the title of Back-Back-to-back NCAA Champion and All-American to his resume in April. Regardless of what the outcome of this season will be the fact still remains that Russ went from 2 stars to superstar a meteoric rise to fame that we may never see again. As the basketball season winds down over the next couple of weeks enjoy watching and cheering for this kid who has poured his heart and his soul into the team, the University of Louisville, and the city of Louisville.