In a battle between a couple of evenly matched teams, it can take but a quick interlude of momentary superiority for separation.
On the court, peripherals factor to a degree.
That one team is without its best player with injury.
That the other wants revenge for losing less than a week ago in its final home tilt of the season.
That one spilled blood in the 1st. Eye gash. Lip split. Eye poke.
That the other was iffy for the most part at the FT line, but hit key ones.
That one turned it over too much, and the other cashed in.
That one, out of sync, never lost its grit, stayed scrappy.
Surely those subliminals matter for the entire affair.
Except for a minute and thirty four seconds soon right after halftime, all that and more was a wash.
The Cardinals, with smoke and mirrors perhaps but mostly scrappiness in abundance, led by a penny at the break, 38-37.
Even though they were -7 in points off turnovers.
Miami tallied a deuce on the first possession after the break.
The Cards answered with a triple.
Then the telling, deciding interlude.
In 1:34, the victorious Hurricanes ran off 10 unanswered. A trey. A deuce in the paint. A pair of FTs. Another two, and a lone FT.
Miami scored on each of its initial six possessions after intermission.
U of L failed to answer. A missed longball, a shot blocked, consecutive turnovers.
That Louisville as always continued to fight and claw, twice improbably cutting their deficit to a point, wasn’t enough.
As the game wended its way to the buzzer, there were plenty of ifs and buts and coulda woulda shouldas.
I have zero inclination to make a list.
The Cardinals imperfections showed.
The Cardinals relentlessness did also.
Haphazardly at times, they stayed in the fray, gave themselves a shot.
That’s all this fan can ask for.
I started just now to list the players that were the most impactful, psychologically, statistically.
But you know, from where I’m sitting, they all gave it what they could, given all of Thursday afternoon’s exigencies.
Every school in the land but the league champions shall lose this week.
I, for one, had no delusion that Louisville somehow would win four straight.
They didn’t. Won one. Lost to an equal foe.
Sunday evening we find out who’s next?