What went wrong for the Louisville basketball team earlier this season? Everything that could.
Coach Rick Pitino’s message to his Cardinals: Greatness is as greatness does.
“I told them everybody has greatness in them,” Pitino said after Louisville’s 93-85 overtime win over West Virginia in the Albuquerque regional final.
Lately, what Louisville has done is win and win some more. The Cardinals (33-4) haven’t lost since an ignominious 20-point spanking by Memphis on Feb. 9.
They have rolled along despite defections and slumps and enough injuries to keep a TV medical drama in story lines for an entire season.
They have turned trouble into opportunity, banished excuses with execution. And like Illinois (36-1), which they face Saturday in the NCAA tournament semifinals, they blended grace with grit to overcome long odds and reach the Final Four.
All season, Illinois has been celebrated as a team that never says die. Louisville has proved to be just as gritty, just as determined and just as resourceful in maximizing its talent.
Unlike the Illini, who were expected to do well from the start, the Cardinals weren’t supposed to get this far.
The first blow came before the season when prized recruits Donta Smith and Sebastian Telfair decided to forgo college for the NBA.
“This season caught me off guard,” Pitino said. “We felt, we really did, that we were going to struggle to make the tournament this year just based on health, injuries and the problems we were having with defections to the NBA.”
Then freshman forward Brian Johnson was lost for the season to a knee injury. Taquan Dean, coming off hernia surgery, played through mononucleosis and a bad ankle. Forward Otis George has played through two stress fractures in his right foot. Ellis Myles, coming back from major knee surgery, has played with a fractured thumb.
Those are just the major injuries. The Cardinals also have little depth, rarely playing more than eight players.
So did his team overachieve? Not exactly, Pitino said.
“Overachieving means you go beyond your capacity to try and win,” he said. “These guys have done that all year, but they’re a very talented team.”
Freshman starter Juan Palacios has averaged 10 points and almost seven rebounds. Senior Larry O’Bannon developed into an offensive force, shooting better than 50 percent from the floor and averaging better than 15 points. Myles pulled down 9.3 rebounds per game, and Dean played through almost constant fatigue to average 14.5 points.
The whole package is held together by Francisco Garcia, one of the best players in the country.
At 6 feet 7 inches, Garcia is all limbs. He’s long, versatile confident and, most of all, smart. He is averaging 16 points, four assists and four rebounds per game.
Garcia seemed to struggle offensively early in the season. Instead of scoring, he concentrated on distributing the ball and pumping up his teammates, promising Pitino their self-confidence would pay off come tournament time.
He proved to be prescient. Forced to the bench after fouling out with 4 minutes 2 seconds left in regulation against West Virginia, Garcia had to rely on those teammates to pull the Cardinals through.
Louisville comes into the Illinois game with 13 straight wins and 22 victories in its last 23 games.
“Suddenly, we realized we had a really good basketball team, that we were unselfish and had certain things you can’t measure by pure talent,” Pitino said. “These guys have great character. They’re all different people, but they’re all in this together. It’s one heartbeat.”
