There is a reason the Louisville Cardinals are the No.1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. This season marks the program’s 10th trip to the big dance in renowned coach Rick Pitino’s 12-year tenure. This is the seventh straight season they have made it to Madness and have racked up three Elite Eight experiences, two of which ended in final four runs, including last year.
Pretty impressive, eh?
What’s more, is that this season is the best since the Cardinals won the whole tourney back in 1980. Louisville is 31-5 and on an incredible tear right now.
The low point for Pitino’s squad was a three-game skid in January to Syracuse, Villanova and Georgetown, two of which were only two-point defeats.
The Cardinals got back on track with three consecutive wins before falling 104-101 in a five overtime saga against Notre Dame. That was the last time Louisville tasted defeat. It will have been 58 days since the Cards have last lost when they face-off with Oregon on Friday.
In that time span, Louisville has scored 12 wins. The Cardinals finished the regular season with wins over Syracuse, Cincinnati and Notre Dame (all tournament teams). In the Big East Tournament, Louisville beat another tourney team in Villanova before topping Notre Dame again. In the championship of the conference final the Cardinals trailed Syracuse by 16 points in the second half. But Louisville not only came back to win, but they blew the Orange out by 17, outscoring their opponent 56-26 in the second half.
Needless to say, the Cardinals had no trouble in dispatching North Carolina A&T and Colorado State in the first two rounds of this NCAA Tournament, by an average differential of almost 29.
Ranked as the number one overall seed for the big dance by the selection committee as well as No.2 in the AP Poll, behind only now-eliminated Gonzaga, the Cardinals are just about everyone’s favorite to win the whole shebang.
Louisville has the 12th-ranked defense in the country, allowing only 57.6 points per game to their foes. They are 42nd in the country in scoring, averaging 73.6 per game. The Cards are also in the top 50 for rebounds and assists.
Junior guard Russ Smith leads the Cardinals with over 18 points per game and he has scored 20 or more four of the last five games. But even with all the dominating performances, the Cardinals have turned in over the second half of the season. Even their best player knows they aren’t invincible.
“If we don’t come out with effort, we’ll beat ourselves,” Peyton Siva said. “We played 35 minutes against Notre Dame and we got beat in overtime. We’re not overconfident. How can we be when we lost three straight? Who are we to be overconfident about anything? We lost a close game to Syracuse when I turned the ball over, and lost a close game against Georgetown when I didn’t have a good game, and then at Villanova we didn’t make free throws. We have got to take care of the ball and make better decisions and make free throws down the stretch.”