Louisville Basketball: Cardinals defense takes charge against Duke
The Louisville basketball team may not be going to the postseason, but they weren’t going to lay down against Duke.
Rick Pitino’s Louisville Cardinals have nothing else to play for but school pride and team love after the institution decided to fall on their own sword, imposing sanctions on themselves that will keep the basketball team out of the NCAA Tournament.
The suicidal move is actually serving as motivation for the Cardinals who have no other championship to play for now except the ACC title.
Louisville and Duke both came into the contest with 9-4 records in conference. But Louisville at home with a raucous crowd behind them was too much for the streaking Blue Devils who had their five-game win streak snapped by the score of 71-64.
The Cardinals finished the contest on a 30-12 run after being down 44-31 with 17:20 to go in the second half. The Louisville press along with Duke’s lack of depth ended up being the deciding factor in this contest.
Louisville’s pressure became so frustrating for the Duke Blue Devils that composure was lost by everyone from coach Mike Krzyzewski to Duke star player Grayson Allen. Coach K received a technical with 5:04 left in the game when it was apparent the Blue Devils were losing control of the game.
Grayson Allen received a technical after his offensive foul with 3:55 left sent him to the bench with five fouls and he let his disgust be known with a bit of vulgar language.
Louisville’s press was that potent on Saturday afternoon. It is a shame that the nation is not going to get to see Rick Pitino’s bunch operate in March.
The Cardinals’ press forced the Blue Devils’ into 18 turnovers for the contest and was the catalyst for the huge second half comeback.
Damion Lee showed why he is on the Wooden Watch List once again with another solid performance which saw him log 24 points in the contest.
Chinanu Onuaku finished with a double-double of 10 points and 11 rebounds for Louisville also.
Those performance, as well as Louisville’s defense, was more than enough to counter the hot shooting of Duke’s Grayson Allen who knocked down 8 of 12 from the field including 5 of 8 from three-point range en route to his 29 point output.
Some would say that this is the type of game that exposed the lack of depth Duke is inflicted with at this time with Matt Jones and Amile Jefferson out due to injury.
Louisville Cardinals
But at the same time, it would be hard to pull off back-to-back ACC road wins against the like of North Carolina and Louisville with a healthy team much less a team struggling with injury.
Louisville will now take their act on the road to “The Oakland Zoo” Wednesday when they face the Pitt Panthers who are in need of a win over a ranked team so they can distance themselves from the NCAA tournament bubble, while Duke will rest up and look to get back on track Thursday in Cameron Indoor Coliseum against the Florida State Seminoles.
It is a shame that the kids who are on the Louisville Basketball team have to suffer punishment for the scandal the so-called adults have put the school in.
Louisville has been the best defensive team in the nation and has been consistently ranked between No.15 and No. 20 all year.
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It would have been interesting to see how the Louisville Cardinals’ press and depth would have fared in the NCAA Tournament, but due to a flawed system, we are left to our imaginations as to how well they would have done.