LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — The preliminaries are over. They ended, quite tensely, Saturday afternoon in the KFC Yum! Center when the University of Louisville men’s basketball team survived Eastern Kentucky, 78-76.
Survived is the proper verb. In fact, it might not be strong enough.
The Cards were favored by 19 1/2 points. On a day when they spit out a 15-point first-half lead and a 10-point edge in the second half, the Cardinals needed Noah Waterman to knife across the left baseline and score a contested 3-footer over two EKU defenders with 1.2 seconds to play to … well, survive.
“They felt that pressure,” EKU forward Devontae Blanton said.
The victory was not secure until Terrence Edwards Jr. intercepted the EKU inbounds pass and then made a free throw with 0.4 remaining, the final gasp in a game Louisville needed simply to win by whatever means necessary.
“We were very fortunate to come out with a win,” U of L coach Pat Kelsey said. “It’s not always going to be pretty.”
It was Louisville’s 11th and final non-conference game. They won seven (topped by victories over Indiana and West Virginia) and lost four, all to teams expected to make the NCAA Tournament. Overall the Cards improved to 8-5.
“It’s been a tough non-conference schedule,” Kelsey said. “We played a lot of really good teams. Got our butts kicked a couple of times. But I like where our team is at.”
Considering Pitt beat the Colonels by 40 and Clemson handled EKU by 13, it was not the kind of performance to inspire many conversations about March for Pat Kelsey’s squad.
EKU led by two points with just less than 10 minutes to play. The Colonels let the Cards spurt to 10-point lead and then reclaimed the lead (73-72) on a drive by Blanton with 2:20 to play.
The danger was legit — and unrelenting. The Cards got baskets by Reyne Smith and Waterman to avoid disaster.
“We didn’t come here for a moral victory,” EKU coach A.W. Hamilton said. “We came here to win. We’re disappointed in that locker room.”
A loss to EKU would have been a major smudge on Louisville’s NCAA Tournament resume. Did not happen. Avoiding that smudge is the positive to come from this one.
So as January approaches, March is always a reasonable topic of conversation.
Now, on to the main event — Atlantic Coast Conference play.
“I love where we’re at and I love what we’re doing,” Kelsey said.
The survivable ACC, a league with one Top 25 team.
The open for discussion ACC.
The looking for NCAA Tournament teams ACC, a league that went 4-30 against the Southeastern Conference and 3-8 against the Big 12.
Other than Duke, there is nobody for Louisville to fear in the ACC. The Cards have already played Duke — and they do not have to make a return trip to Durham. They have a road win against Florida State secured on their resume.
What are the computer rankings forecasting?
Ken Pomeroy says U of L will go 12-8 in the ACC, finishing sixth. Bart Torvik upgrades that to 13-7, putting the Cards in a fourth-place tie. Evan Miyakawa also has Louisville sixth in the 18-team league, ahead of North Carolina State, Notre Dame and Wake Forest.
In addition to its power ratings, Bart Torvik’s college basketball analytics site added an NCAA Tournament projection table.
Prior to the Cards’ win over EKU, Torvik gave the Cards’ a 28.6% of making the 68-team field. That ranked sixth among ACC teams behind Duke (100%), Pitt (94.2), Clemson (72.6), North Carolina (71.2) and SMU (39.1).
North Carolina comes to the downtown Louisville Wednesday at 6 p.m. and that already looks like a game that will be essential to Louisville’s push to make itself a team deserving of an NCAA Tournament at-large bid.
Nothing special about the Tar Heels this winter. Their fans are grumbling coach Hubert Davis and UNC’s blah approach to playing defense. North Carolina has lost five times, although all five stumbles have been against Top 20 teams in the computer rankings.
In its only ACC game, Carolina stumbled past Georgia Tech by three points.
Carolina is beatable.
But only if the Cards perform considerably better than they performed against EKU.
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Louisville narrowly escaped with a 78-76 victory over Eastern Kentucky University in their latest game. Now, the question remains: can the Cardinals take advantage of a soft ACC schedule?
With upcoming matchups against teams like Pittsburgh, Wake Forest, and Boston College, Louisville has an opportunity to rack up some wins and gain momentum heading into the heart of conference play.
Despite their struggles earlier in the season, the Cardinals have shown flashes of potential and have the talent to compete with any team in the ACC. If they can string together some wins and build confidence, Louisville could be a dark horse in the conference.
However, they must remain focused and not overlook any opponent, as the ACC is always competitive and any team can pull off an upset on any given night.
It will be interesting to see if Louisville can capitalize on their recent victory and use it as a springboard to success in the ACC. Only time will tell, but one thing is for sure: the Cardinals have the opportunity to make some noise in the conference if they play to their full potential.
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