DES MOINES, Iowa (WDRB) – They use the word "madness" to describe the NCAA Tournament because strange things happen. Teams that don't make threes all season all of a sudden turn into Pitino's (other) Bombinos. Or is that the Other Pitino's Bombinos?
Whatever, Minnesota got hot from three in Thursday's NCAA Tournament against Louisville, making 11 of 27 from beyond the arc, and that was that. Louisville couldn't score consistently enough, fell behind by 19, and a late charge never got them closer than seven in an 86-76 victory.
"It's one of those crazy things," Louisville junior Jordan Nwora said. "They started making them and then they were hitting them at the end of the shot clock, fadeaways. We hadn't seen anything like that on video."
Because Minnesota had done it only once on video. The Gophers made 12 threes in a home win over Indiana a little more than a month ago. They made only 10 threes in their entire three-game Big Ten Tournament run. But here they were.
Photos from Louisville's 86-76 loss to Minnesota in the NCAA Tournament East Regional in Des Moines, Iowa.
"It was draining," graduate guard Christen Cunningham said. "We played a lot of good possessions of D, 28, 27 seconds of really good defense, then they hit fadeaways, hit a three at the end of the half. And then they'd get some offensive rebound putbacks. That's kind of how the day went. We didn't do the job defensively, or rebounding the ball."
Mack, like every other sane person, prepared his team for a Minnesota squad determined to attack the paint. Only three teams in the NCAA field got a lower percentage of their points from three-point range than the 22 percent Minnesota averaged on the season. They got 38 percent from beyond the arc on Thursday, and combined with making 18 of 31 from two-point range (58 percent) they had too much firepower for the Cardinals.
"Coming into the game we felt the strength of their team was in the paint," Mack said. ". . . Obviously, Gabe Kalscheur shoots big and for Jordan Murphy to make two in a game, hats off to a terrific player. Good players rise to the occasion in those types of situations, and he did that. That's why they're moving on. But it's a tough thing when you know their identity is built around the paint and they make some shots like they did today. But they earned the victory and we weren't quite good enough."
The Cardinals got 22 points and four assists from Cunningham. They outscored Minnesota from the bench 29-0. Steven Enoch scored 12 points off the bench and Darius Perry had 12. Jordan Nwora finished with 10.
Kalscheur led all scorers with 24 points and made 5 of 11 threes. Murphy and Amir Coffey added 18 each for Minnesota, which advances to face Michigan State in Saturday's second round.
As for the three-point shooting, Pitino said it wasn't something he thought would happen coming into the game. Minnesota players said they thought Louisville was giving them the three early and after hitting a couple everyone seemed to gain confidence.
"I think it just happened," Pitino said. "It wasn't anything that we necessarily saw. It's a confidence builder. Gabe is a great shooter. Murph chipping in with two. That's an addition, but we stuck with our offensive flow and I don't think it was anything necessarily that they did. We were just confident with open shots."
The game ends a Louisville season in which a team picked to finish 11th in the Atlantic Coast Conference tied for sixth. It was a flawed team, but one that Mack hopes will be remembered fondly for how hard it worked and played to get Louisville back onto the NCAA's postseason stage.
"It's a really tough feeling to end your season so quickly in the NCAA Tournament," Mack said. "I'm very proud of our group. They exceeded a lot of people's expectations. It's sort of hard to see that in this moment, but to get a group picked 11th preseason in our conference and to represent our league in the NCAA Tournament, I don't take that lightly. I thought our guys, our three graduate transfers, did a tremendous job of showing leadership and being everyday guys and bringing some excitement back to Louisville basketball. As I said before, Minnesota was the better team."
And Mack expects to field better teams ahead.
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