Louisville NCAA Rewind: March 16th
With the 2020 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament cancelled, Louisville Report will go back in time to recap all of the University of Louisville men's basketball's NCAA Tournament games from each date in March and early April. Special thanks to Sports-Reference.com for boxscores and the Courier-Journal for newspaper archives.
Louisville's March 15th NCAA Tournament Record: 5-2
1972: Louisville defeats Southwest Louisiana 88-84
A top ten matchup awaited UofL for the first game of their 1972 Final Four run, as the No. 4 Cardinals outlasted the No. 8 Southwest Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns 88-84 in Ames, IA.
Heading into this game, the Ragin' Cajuns were one of the highest scoring teams in the country. They averaged 98.3 points per game, with All-American and future No. 1 overall NBA draft pick Dwight "Bo" Lamar leading the charge averaging a D1-best 36.6 points per game.
The contest almost got away from them, as SW Louisiana started the game on a 30-16 run. But then UofL's Jim Price put the clamps on Lamar and the Cardinals as a whole started to figure out the 1-3-1 zone that the Cajuns presented them.
Despite attempting a season-high 42, Lamar only sank 14 of them en route to scoring just 29 points, well below his season average. On the other side, Price shot 10-15 from the field and 5-6 at the line for a team high 25 points.
Thanks in part to Price's efforts on both ends of the floor, the Cardinals led by as much as 12 points in the closing moments of the game. A last ditch Cajuns press defense chipped away a bit of that lead, but at that point it was far too late.
1974: Creighton defeats Louisville
Playing in the Midwest region's Third Place consolation game just two days after falling to Oral Roberts in the NCAA Tournament's opening round, No. 16 Louisville's lack of desire led to an 80-71 flameout against the No. 19 Creighton Bluejays.
While this was the last ride this season for both teams, the Bluejays had a little bit more on the line than their avian counterparts. With a victory to end the season, Creighton would officially have the best season in school history at 23-7.
Plus Louisville made it abundantly clear they did not want to be there.
"I didn't think too much of it," said senior Bill Butler. "The last game. Just get it over with. We weren't up for it. ... We were still down from the Oral Roberts game."
With inspiration on opposite ends of the spectrum for both teams, it translated into an easy matchup on the court for the Bluejays. Partially due to being undersized, the Cardinals lost the rebounding battle 35-25, with their leading scorers for the game in Junior Bridgeman & Allen Murphy only contributing 13 points a piece.
1980: Louisville defeats LSU 86-66
A top three matchup both in the NCAA Tournament's Midwest region and in the Associated Press' Top 25 Poll, the No. 2 seeded Louisville Cardinals overcame some first half obstacles to wallop the top seeded LSU Tigers 86-66 to advance to their fourth Final Four in school history.
While the end result was a blowout, at one point the Cardinals faced the very real possibility of getting sent home. After taking charge with a 21-13 lead to open the game, the Tigers fired off 16 unanswered points to lead by 8 with 4:30 left in the first half. It also did not help that All-American Darrell Griffith had collected three fouls in the first nine and half minutes of the game.
But then Louisville snapped out of the trance that LSU had on them, and took complete control. Starting with scoring the final 10 points of the half to take a 2 point advantage into halftime, the Cardinals outscored the Tigers 65-37 the rest of way, including a 55 point second half.
Led by Griffith's 17 points, four of UofL's starters finished in double figures including Wiley Brown, Derek Smith & Rodney McCray, with Jerry Eaves finishing 1 point shy of accomplishing the feat as well.
1984: Louisville defeats Morehead State 72-59
Avenging one of the worst games in his collegiate career, Milt Wagner led the charge for the No. 5 seeded Cardinals in their 1984 NCAA Tournament opener, racing past the No. 12 seed Morehead State Racers 72-59 at The Mecca in Milwaukee.
Just one game prior, Wagner had gone just 1-14 from the field against Virginia Tech in the Metro Conference Tournament. However he quickly put his abysmal performance in the rear view mirror.
"I came in here very confident tonight," he said. "I wasn't about to look back on my 'disaster game' last week. I knew it was just a bad one and I had to throw it out."
Wagner was one of three Cardinals with double points, with him and Lancaster Gordon tying for a game best 17 points. With Charles Jones also contributing 16, the trio combined for 50 of Louisville's 72 points and went 20-34 from the field and 10-12 from the free throw line.
1989: Louisville defeats Arkansas-Little Rock
Louisville's 1989 Sweet 16 run got off to a rocky start, as the No. 4 seeded Cardinals barely squeaked past the No. 13 seeded Arkansas-Little Rock Trojans 76-71 in front of 37,232 fans at the RCA Dome, an NCAA record for a first round game.
"We didn't seem to have the zip we had in the Metro Tournament," head coach Denny Crum said. "We just played well enough to win, and we"ll move on."
The Cards won in lieu of a cold shooting night from senior center Pervis Ellison. He went 3-8 from the field and 2-6 from the free throw line to score 8 points, which was 10 below his average for the season.
Fortunately, his supporting cast collectively picked up the slack and carried Louisville to victory. All four other starters finished in double digits, with Kenny Payne scoring a team high 17 points, LaBradford Smith dishing out a game high 5 assists, and Tony Kimbro coming just one rebound short of a double-double.
1997: Louisville defeats New Mexico 64-63
A 22 point performance from DeJuan Wheat and a redemption from B.J. Flynn helped pull off the second upset, as the No. 6 seed Louisville Cardinals advanced to their second straight Sweet 16 thanks to a 64-63 upset over the No. 3 seeded New Mexico Lobos.
With the Cards clinging to a 1 point lead, Flynn cam every close to putting the nail in the coffin in his own career, as the senior was called for traveling with 16.2 seconds left. Fortunately on the other end, the Lobos' leading scorer Charles Smith kicked the ball out to David Gibson, who threw up an awkward shot that bounced off the backboard and into the hands of Flynn, redeeming his egregious error just moments before.
The Cards fell behind early as New Mexico jumped out to an early 20-12 lead. When head coach Denny Crum had his squad switch to a 2-3 zone, Louisville slowly began to chip into the Lobos lead that had been as big as nine points.
Despite going cold in crunch time, Wheat was the catalyst for the Cards in the second half. He finished with game high 22 points on 7-16 from the field but on 5-10 from three-point range, and was the only Cardinal in double figures.
2000: Gonzaga defeats Louisville 77-66
A cold shooting performance for the Cards and a hot shooting night for the Zags spelled doom for the No. 7 seeded Cardinals, as they were upset by the No. 10 seed Gonzaga Bulldogs in what would be Denny Crum's final NCAA Tournament game as the UofL head coach.
Despite carrying a 1 point lead into the half, the Cardinals could not carry on their momentum as they shot just 28% in the second half and went 2-17 from the perimeter for the entire night.
"We just couldn't make shots," Crum said. "We shot it about as bad as you can shoot it"
A 21 point performance from Marques Maybin was countered by an even more impressive 31 point performance form Gonzaga's Richie Frahm.
While Louisville attempted 22 more shots and turned it over 11 less times the Gonzaga, shooting was the key difference. The Bulldogs as a whole shot 57.1% while Louisville could only muster 37.5%.
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