CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WDRB) – Perhaps you thought you wouldn’t see anything crazier than Duke nearly losing a 24-point lead in the second half of its ACC Tournament semifinal win over North Carolina in the Spectrum Center Friday night.
Respectfully, Blue Devils, hold Louisville’s beer.
The Cardinals led by 15 by 3:28 left. I would never have bet that a veteran, guard-dominated team like Louisville would struggle to land the plane in this one. Instead, disaster. Louisville was clinging to a two-point lead with three seconds on the shot clock and 28.3 seconds left. A J’Vonne Hadley shot in the lane didn’t hit the rim, and Clemson took over with 25.2 seconds left, down 76-73.
Clemson’s Chase Hunter was run off the three-point line by James Scott, then Aboubacar Traore blocked his shot at the rim, Louisville corralled the rebound, Chucky Hepburn made one of two free-throw, Hunter missed a running three at the buzzer, and Louisville fans could exhale.
Louisville 75, Clemson 73.
It was a weird game all around. First, Clemson got locked out of its locker room at halftime. Then, Louisville locked down the Clemson offense in the second half.
Anyone tempted to view the Cardinals as a fluke would do well to consider – they beat the No. 11-ranked Tigers for the second time this season despite some massive second-half foul trouble and the continued absence of Reyne Smith, the most dangerous three-point threat in the conference.
None of it mattered to the Cardinals, who took a five-point lead to halftime, extended it to 11 in the first 7 ½-minutes of the second half, then cruised – until it wobbled badly against Clemson’s pressure in the final minutes.
The win sets up a rematch with No. 1-ranked Duke. The Blue Devils beat Louisville 76-65 back on Dec. 8, after the Cardinals took a lead to halftime in the KFC Yum! Center.
Duke will be without ACC Player of the Year Cooper Flagg. Duke held off North Carolina 74-71 after seeing a 24-point lead evaporate in the second half of Fridays’ first semifinal.
Louisville is playing without a lot of guys. But it doesn’t care. The Cardinals have won 11 games in a row, are 27-6 on the season, and after being picked to finish ninth in the ACC, will face Duke for the ACC Tournament championship as the event’s No. 2 seed.
Not bad for a start-from-scratch kind of deal.
Clemson grabbed a quick lead early, but Louisville, unable to get the kind of volume threes it likes, did what it usually does. Terrence Edwards, in particular, along with Chucky Hepburn and J’Vonne Hadley, found crafty ways to score in the lane, and by halftime Louisville was up 38-33.
The Cardinals appeared ready to walk away with this win. Then it melted down against Clemson’s pressure.
It was, in many ways, a blueprint of how not to finish a game in that situation. Though give Clemson some credit. The Tigers bring a group of returnees back from an Elite Eight team and had been one of the hottest teams in the nation until Friday.
“We knew it was going to come down to something like that,” said Edwards, who led Louisville with 21 points despite 1-for-9 shooting from three-point range. “You know, Clemson is a good team. You know, we played early in the year, and it was the same way, it was a rock fight down there in the paint. We already knew it was going to come down one position game. We prepared for that. You know, we can’t turn over the ball out there, of course. But we’re always going be the tougher team at the end.”
Hadley finished with 20points and nine rebounds. Hepburn had 12 points, five assists and five steals.
Louisville outrebounded Clemson 38-37 and made 22 of 27 free-throws.
It all sets up a berth in the program’s fifth different conference championship. A thing of beauty turned ugly late, but the result it what it is.
Louisville will get its shot at Duke for an ACC championship on Saturday at 8:30 p.m.
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