CRAWFORD | Flu? Fouls? Florida State? Louisville beats all three, 89-81

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Much of the University of Louisville’s scintillating Atlantic Coast Conference run has been built on comfortable wins, even when adversity has hit. There was nothing comfortable about Saturday’s 89-81 win over Florida State.

The No. 25-ranked Cardinals were hit with the flu bug during their six days off. And once the game started, they were hit with serious second-half foul trouble against a deep Florida State team looking for a signature win for a longtime coach who has announced his retirement at the end of the season.

Not only that, the Seminoles applied some serious game pressure after cutting a 20-point deficit to six with just over eight minutes to play in the game.

For Louisville, Terrence Edwards was on the bench with four fouls. Chucky Hepburn, their leading scorer, had been playing with three fouls since late in the first half.

At the 7:57 timeout, an extended discussion ensued in front of the bench between J’Vonne Hadley, Louisville coach Pat Kelsey and an official.

But as they have done all season, Louisville responded out of the timeout. Edwards, back in the game, split the defense for a layup, and after a stop, Hepburn backed his man down and hit a midrange fadeaway to regain some breathing room, up 72-60.

But moments later, Hepburn was called for his fourth foul, and a KFC Yum! Center crowd of better than 16,000 was guaranteed a nervous finish.

It is a luxury of having experienced and talented guards that Louisville was able to make the next four minutes nearly disappear. With serious foul trouble and an opponent with momentum, they entered that stretch with a 12-point lead and, after a shot-clock beating three pointer with 4:17 left, they led by 15.

It was enough to salvage a win, though it was Louisville's first in single digits since a win at Pittsburgh on Jan. 11.

"It's a luxury to have the type of closers that we have in Chucky and Fat and J'Vonne," Kelsey said. "We have really good players, but like those are the guys that you kind of put the ball in their hands at the end of the game, they're going to make something really, really good happen. I'm fortunate as a coach to have that. It makes you look really smart when you just say, hey, let's get the ball to Chucky and get the crap out of here. It's not rocket science."

"The last eight minutes of the game, we call it winning time," Edwards said. "That's when we have to be at our best. We didn't do that in the Wake Forest game and the game before that, so now we're just taking pride in that last eight minutes."

Even with navigating that portion of the game, Florida State still scored seven straight points in a minute and a half, getting a couple of stops without fouling, and trimmed its deficit to 78-71 with 2:18 left.

Leonard Hamilton called his last timeout to dial up full-court pressure. Hadley missed a driving layup, and Florida State answered with a score to pull within five. Then Edwards drove in the lane to put Louisville back up 81-73 with 1:08 left.

Florida State, in full attack mode, answered with a layup six seconds later, then fouled Hepburn on the inbound play. He made one of two, but then came up with his fifth steal of the game on the other end and was fouled, converting both free throws to put Louisville up nine.

From that point on, it was a free-throw contest -- and Hepburn was winning it. The senior played a brilliant game, finishing with 29 points and making a school record 17 free-throws in 19 attempts. Hadley finished with 18 and Edwards 16.

"It's a big difference when you have maturity, and guys who have kind of been around a while," Hamilton said. "Guys who have been through the maturation process. We probably say the same things and our kids have probably run the same drills, but the maturity allows for them to execute those things a lot better. Size and athletic ability is pretty good in track, but in basketball you need to make so many decisions in 0.5 seconds and we have not been on point with that the entire year. . . . I think they have done a tremendous job of picking the right guys who fit the way they want to play. And that's not easy. It's really masterful. Sometimes you can recruit for talent, but they can't necessarily play the way you want to play. You watch a kid like Hadley, everybody wants a player like that, because his motor just doesn't stop."

For Louisville, the win -- its fifth straight and 15th in its last 16 games -- improved its season record to 21-6, 14-2 in the ACC with four regular season games remaining.

“I’m not here to talk about anyone feeling sorry for us because every team has adversity," Kelsey said. "But our rotation was a little messed up today because we had some guys sick this week. Like Reyne (Smith) was drained today. He gave us great minutes even though he didn’t have his normal legs. Noah (Waterman) had the same issues. Those guys were ready to play and gave it everything. We had to get them in and out of the game because of fatigue and things like that. So, other guys really had to step up and play more minutes and have more responsibilities. We were dealing with some foul trouble. Chucky (Hepburn), he was in foul trouble. Terrence (Edwards Jr.) was in foul trouble. That’s why it’s so important to get contributions from other guys, Like Aboubacar (Traore) who was huge tonight. J’Vonne played 38 minutes and had to do so many things."

Among those dealing with the flu this week was Kelsey himself.

"We had to change some things on Thursday and Friday," he said. "We had to be really creative about what we did. Definitely did not have our normal Friday, and then this morning. Yes, it was unique. It was kind of cool. I mean, I don't like when people get sick, don't get me wrong. But I always think it's kind of fun, as weird as that sounds, when you've just got to figure stuff out. Guys get hurt, just figure it out. Guys get hurt, just figure it out. It's part of the deal. I say all the time, half the world couldn't care less about your problems and the other half are glad you have them. So we talked about people that are dealing with real, real life adversity. All we're dealing with is some chapped lips and hang nails."

The Cardinals will travel to Virginia Tech on Tuesday for their final regular-season road game, then finish with a trio of games at home.

With Louisville's 21st win, Kelsey becomes just the second coach in Louisville history to win as many as 21 games in his first season. The other was Denny Crum, who went 26-5 and reached the Final Four in his debut season in Louisville. Kelsey, who was named to the Naismith National Coach of the Year Watch List this week, credited his team.

"That's power of the unit," he said. "We're really good. Obviously, I'm the guy that sits at the podium that you guys want to talk to, put me on some list or something like that. It's the power of the unit. It's 25 strong. Like, the student managers' role and job, are you guys sick of me hearing that is as important? It's not more important or less important than mine. It's everybody in that organization, having a smile on their face and doing their job. Like, our GAs, our student managers, our strength coaches, our trainers, our scout team, point guards. They think -- because I believe it -- that in order for us to be great, they have to be in the best in the country at what they do. And it's about that mentality, and it's my staff and the belief I have in them and the trust I put in them and the job that they do, and the excellence with which they go about every day. I believe if everybody in the organization is that way, I have said this many times, results take care of themselves. And for the better part of this year, they have. I wish that whatever that list is, I wish it said, it was about a program, it was about an organization, it was about a staff, it was about 25 strong, because that's the reason that we're good."

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