Oregon had a nice run. A surprising, program profile-raising and exciting five-game streak for the Ducks had UO fans excited. An unlikely Pac-12 Tournament championship and two “upsets” in two tries in the NCAA Tournament will be looked back on as a success. But on Thursday night when the 12-seeded Ducks met March Madness’ top team in Louisville, it was clear the whole way who the better basketball team was. The Cardinals flustered Oregon from the opening tip and did not let up in an all-out assault on the basket, crushing the Ducks, 77-69 in the Sweet 16 showdown.

“When you let a good team like Louisville be the aggressor, because they’re ahead, never make them play from behind, they’re tough to beat,” Oregon head coach Dana Altman said.

Lots of things ended for Oregon on Friday aside from just the season. Damyean Dotson, who for five games had carried the Ducks with outstanding, early offense, shot a poor 0-for-6 in the first half including two air-balls from three-point. The Ducks had out-rebounded opponents in their last four wins, but Louisville was up to the task, snatching many more early rebounds than the Ducks and battling to a 32-32 tie with Oregon in the rebounding department.

E.J. Singler, who scored 15 in his last ever collegiate game, led Oregon in points. Dominic Artis scored 12, making two three-pointers. Dotson overcame a poor first half to score 12 and Arsalan Kazemi notched 11 and a game-high 12 rebounds.

“This being my last year, first three never made it to the NCAA Tournament, so it’s been awesome to experience it in my last year,” Singler said. “I just soaked it up, had as much fun as possible.”

Russ Smith was a scoring engine for Louisville, tallying 31 points, while shooting 12-of-14 from the foul line. Kevin Ware added 11 points and Gorgui Dieng had 10.

“Smith got going to the basket and we just never got him slowed down,” Altman said.

Overall, Louisville was ruthless. In most games a turnover or mistake costs a team points at the other end. Against the Cardinals, a simple missed shot from the Ducks was often converted into a bucket, via extreme speed and careful, precision-passing from Louisville. Both of these teams were expected to push the transition game, but it was clear who was better at it. At the half, Louisville head coach Rick Pitino complimented Oregon’s transition offense as one of the best in the nation, but his team was quite impressive as well, besting Oregon 14-12 in fast-break points by game’s end.

“Disappointed today,” Altman said. “Didn’t feel like we put our best foot forward in the first half. Dug ourselves a pretty big hole and weren’t able to come back. Louisville is a very good basketball team and very talented.”

The Ducks endured the vaunted Louisville press better than most expected, cutting their high turnover mark from games past, to just 12 against the Cardinals. In fact, Oregon forced more turnovers than it gave up, a rarity against Louisville. Where Louisville really was dominant was the half-court defensive game. Duck players were denied any direct lanes to the hoop all night long. The team from Eugene was jammed with Louisville players constantly, as the Cards had pesky and persistent on-ball defense. This reflected in Oregon’s shooting percentage in the first half, as the Ducks shot 40 percent while Louisville was over 60 percent from the floor. The Ducks shot better in the second half but their effort still paled in juxtaposition to Louisville’s, 44.3 percent to 53.8.

After falling behind by 16 at 25-8, after just 10 minutes of play, Oregon put a band-aid on the gushing. Back-and-forth play with a favored team is not a bad thing, unless you have fallen behind by a substantial amount. Oregon looked like climber, having dug a pick into the glacial-like Louisville lead. Unfortunately, that was the only stake the Ducks hung by, never finding a hold of any sort. Louisville would push its lead to 16 at varying points in the first and second half, but the Ducks weather the storm and creep to within eight or 10.

But the Cardinals would allow only that from their foes, advancing the lead quickly, after having ceded some ground.

At 12:31 remaining in the contest, the Ducks were on a high-point, having pulled within eight at 54-46. But it was almost like Louisville allowed it, only to batter the Ducks’ psyche with a 7-0 run to take the largest lead of the game at 18 points.

Oregon found the life-support machine again though, and a 16-4 momentum swing pulled the Ducks within just six points at the 5:13 mark. It looked as though Oregon’s continuous stone-throwing at Louisville’s lead had brought the Ducks within a stone’s throw with crunch time looming. Louisville halted the UO onslaught and demoralized the Ducks yet again, grabbing a basket, lucking-out on a Singler three-point miss and pushing the lead safely back to double-digits.

The loss ends Oregon’s season which likely would have been over if Johnathan Loyd didn’t make two late, game-tying free throws in Oregon’s first game of the Pac-12 Tournament just over two weeks ago.

The game result also spells the end of the college careers of Singler, Tony Woods, Carlos Emory and Kazemi.