LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – It was as perfect a start to a game as the University of Louisville men’s basketball team has fashioned all season. Maybe too perfect.
After jumping to a 16-3 lead, Louisville never could regain the rhythm and crispness that defined its start, and Virginia Tech made enough threes to make this one way too close for comfort for the No. 19-ranked Cardinals.
At one point, Louisville missed 15 out of 16 three-point tries and saw its lead shrink from double digits to a tie game. But the Cardinals’ experience and execution in the endgame helped them leave Blacksburg, Va., with their sixth straight win, a 71-66 victory.
It improved Louisville to 22-6, 15-2 in the ACC. The Cardinals now have a 14-game improvement on last season's win total -- the largest single-season improvement in school history -- and will be no worse than a No. 3 seed in the ACC Tournament. Their 15 ACC wins matches a school record for ACC wins in a regular season and is one short of the school record for league wins in any conference.
But there was little pretty about it. Louisville coach Pat Kelsey likened it to a trip to the dentist's office, but said that was little surprise, given his respect for Virginia Tech coach Mike Young.
"Give Virginia Tech a lot of credit," Kelsey said. "I have a ton of respect for Mike Young. . . . I feel like every time you play against him, you feel like you're getting opened up and getting operated on. He's an unbelievable tactician. His kids play really hard. I thought they played desperate and battled us. We don't get beat on the backboard very often, and we got beat tonight, so that's a big tip of the cap to them."
But Kelsey also credited his own players. He said the last time his team played in a game like this -- as a ranked team on the road -- it went to Georgia Tech and faced a fired-up team and lost. On Tuesday night, he said, he thought his players matched the level of desperation of Virginia Tech, even though they didn't play their best game or have their best shooting night.
"I give our kids a lot of credit for just being resilient, being gritty, being grimy, because that's kind of the type of game it was," Kelsey said. "And I like to think that good teams just figure out a way to win those types of games. We haven't had a lot of games that came down to the situational basketball and things like that. It seems like it's been a while. So I think that was really good for us."Â
Virginia Tech almost won despite turning the ball over 22 times. It made up for that by outrebounding Louisville 37-30 and outscoring the Cards 33-18 from beyond the three-point arc.
The game was uncharacteristic for Louisville in a lot of ways. The Cardinals missed (or had blocked) nine layups. They couldn’t make threes. Reyne Smith went 1-for-9 from three-point range and the Cards went just 6-for-23 as a team.
But Louisville got two offensive rebounds on a key possession late, leading by only one. Hadley grabbed a missed three by Smith, and James Scott hauled in a missed runner by Chucky Hepburn and slammed it home to put the Cards up 69-66.
An unforced Virginia Tech turnover on the other end gave the Cardinals the ball back, but after a timeout with 39 seconds left, Hepburn lost the ball on a spin move and committed his sixth turnover of the game -- setting up one last chance for the Hokies to tie. Out of a timeout, Hadley came away with a steal, and Smith buried two free throws to led Louisville escape.
That play, Kelsey said, was made in large part because of a defensive call in the huddle by assistant Brian Kloman. He made the move to switch James Scott onto the Virginia Tech point guard, so that after Tech ran a middle ball screen and another screen on the side, the right defenders would be in place to pressure shooters. And in this case, Hadley was there on the screen to knock the ball away from Virginia Tech's Brandon Rechsteiner for a steal that sealed the win.
Louisville got a major boost late from Terrence Edwards, who was just 2-for-10 heading into the final minutes, but his back-to-back three-pointers put Louisville up seven with 3:21 left.
"Some games, you've just got to figure it out. And we've got figure-it-out guys," Kelsey said. "We've got closers. We've got guys that know what it takes to win big-time college games down the stretch. Defensive end, we made some big plays."
Hepburn led Louisville with 15 points. Edwards and Scott added 13 each. Hadley had 11 and a game-high eight rebounds. With six assists, Hepburn moved to No. 9 on Louisville's single-season list with 163. With six dunks, Scott leaped over Chane Behanan and Pervis Ellison into third place on Louisville's single-season list with 64. Only Montrezl Harrell in 2014 and 2015 had more dunks in a season at a program that has historically valued the dunk like few others in college basketball.
Virginia Tech outscored Louisville 42-10 off the bench, but Louisville outscored the Hokies 44-24 in the paint and 11-0 on the fast break.
The game was Louisville's last regular-season game of the season on the road. They'll finish with three straight home game, beginning with a 6 p.m. visit from Pittsburgh on Saturday.
Befitting a grimy game, Kelsey came to his postgame news conference with black dry-erase ink still on his hands and pants.
"I don't know why, but when I draw on the whiteboard I just kind of like wipe it off of my hand, and then I go squirt the water," Kelsey told Brooks Holton of The Courier-Journal when he asked about the smudges. "And I just forgot to squirt the water. The game got so intense. . . . So now, my pants are all disgusting. I'm just completely disheveled and a mess."
Respectfully, we've seen some messes in Louisville. What is happening now is anything but.
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