Buzzer beaten: Men's Basketball drops second-straight game • The Louisville Cardinal

By Jeff Milby —

Men’s basketball dropped its second-straight game on Saturday Dec. 3, falling to Seton Hall 79-77 in a thriller at the KFC Yum! Center.

Seton Hall’s Desi Rodriguez scored the game-winner with eight seconds to play, driving past Louisville’s Dwayne Sutton and finishing with a left-handed lay-in. A buzzer-beating attempt from Louisville’s Quentin Snider bounced off the rim, giving the Pirate’s their first win over Louisville since 2010.

Rodriguez finished with 29 points to lead all scorers.

“We’re playing really hard,” acting head coach David Padgett said after the loss. “Our effort is there, we’re just not rewarding ourselves.”

Louisville was led by Deng Adel, who finished with team-high 20 points on 7-of-12 shooting, and Quentin Snider, whose 15 points were a season-high.

Turnovers took the brunt of the blame from Padgett. Louisville lost the turnover battle to Seton Hall, 16-12.

“We’re hurting ourselves too much,” Padgett said. “If we have four or five less (sic) turnovers, we probably have a better chance to win the game.”

Seton Hall scored 16 points directly off of Louisville’s turnovers, while the Cardinals scored 17 points off of 12 turnovers from the Pirates.

“We gave them a lot of easy baskets,” Padgett said. “It seemed like most of our turnovers led to wide-open layups or advantage breaks for them.”

Foul trouble played its part in the Cardinals loss as well. Anas Mahmoud played just four minutes in the first half after being called for two quick fouls. He finished with zero points on zero field-goal attempts in 20 minutes, though he led all players with five blocks.

Ray Spalding also played sparingly after picking up a third foul shortly after the intermission. The junior led Louisville with eight rebounds in 17 minutes.

“It just wasn’t one of his best nights,” Padgett said of Spalding.

Louisville got off to a slow start, falling behind 7-2 out of the gate. The Cardinals trailed for nearly 18 minutes in the first half, gaining their first lead with 56 seconds remaining in the half. Seton Hall led 38-37 at the intermission.

The Cardinals owned the lead for the majority of the second half, but gave it up with under two minutes to play.

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