You wander in the desert for 3290 days, and it makes sense that you might get nervous when you finally spy the promised land.
Louisville 83, South Florida 79.
For the first time since March 17, 2017, the Louisville Cardinals face a 48 hour turnaround to play in the NCAA Round of 32.
So, all you nagging nabobs of negativitude, those of you all over the telly and the interweb and at coffee pots across the land who were oh so bullish on South Florida as the most trendy and surefire of opening round upsetters, gotta question for you.
Who’s your matador now?
The resilient U of L Cards, that’s whom.
Gored, battered, undercut, they were.
But, when you fashion a 23 point advantage thanks to D and maturity, you can spring some leaks, take on some water — OK a lot of water — and stay afloat.
Louisville coughed it up a dozen times in the 2d under South Florida’s relentless pressure.
They bent, and bent, and bent, but didn’t break.
So, rotate on that all ye pundits and bracket filler outers.
Consider your brackets B U S T E D.
The Cardinals played defense.
Now let me talk about Isaac McKneely.
Who has been the object of scorn most all of the season from way too many of the Cardinal faithful.
Let’s start with the triple he drained out of a timeout with 7:11 left to push the Cardinals’ diminishing lead back to 75-61.
Key play of the game, it says here.
Then there’s the reality that he was money all afternoon.
Netted 11 in the opening half on 4/5 shooting.
Finished the game with 23 on 8/11, 7/10 marksmanship.
Add in a trio of rebounds, a couple of assists and a steal.
His D was, yeah I’ll say it, tenacious.
The Cardinals played defense.
But they held on, never relinquished their advantage gained for good at 13:50 of the 1st (By the by on a trey by the Dot from Poca), and put up these offensive numbers after the break:
So, rattled they may have seemed — and frankly actually were — they scored in a very efficient manner.
And never stopped playing defense.
The Bulls were a “sure thing” to win the battle of the boards hugely.
Especially at the offensive end.
Except that the Greek Tweak let them understand early it wasn’t going to be all that easy.
He had three in the opening couple of minutes. The Cards five at the first media break.
U of L won the rebounding battle, 41-37.
Yes, ye experts that happened.
South Florida did end up with more offensive retrievals for the game.
But, thanks to the Cardinals stoppage resilience, the teams were even in 2d chance scores.
The Cardinals played defense.
Sananda Fru, who has appeared soft at times this campaign, got in touch with his inner Zoug.
10 points. 10 boards, two ORB.
Let’s hope his back doesn’t freeze up overnight. He took a mighty tumble when undercut.
The Cardinals played defense.
For all their pregame talk talk, it was the Bulls who weren’t ready for prime time.
Bulls talked. Cardinals walked the walk.
The Cardinals played defense.
The Bulls were held to 39% shooting.
Including a key 1/17 from Treyville in the opening period.
A major tip o’ the chapeau to Coach Pat Kelsey.
He had a game plan that worked.
He is off the tourney schneid.
Trendy pick with the Flavor of the Month coach South Florida 79.