By Harry Barsan

Louisville just eked out a victory against the Eastern Kentucky Colonels.

While Louisville was favored heavily in this match, the Cardinals will certainly take a victory over a loss any day.

Hot, cold and colder

Both teams started out hot early, each hitting back-to-back threes to open the score to 8-8.

But both teams got cold quick, scoring five total points in the next five minutes and shooting a combined 2-of-20 from the field.

With just around 10 minutes of the first to go, both squads eventually found their rhythms right and ended their scoring slumps, both nearly doubling their scores.

Back-to-back-to-back threes from Terrence Edwards Jr., Noah Waterman and Chucky Hepburn gave the Cards a nine-point lead, while the Cardinal defense continued to force bad looks from the Colonel offense.

The Colonels hit a couple of shots themselves to pull within three, but Edwards Jr. and Waterman went on a tear and scored 14 of the next 16 points.

The duo’s run featured three-straight from deep to keep a comfortable lead as the half neared an end.

The Cards held a 46-37 lead at the break.

More than a fright

Immediately out of the locker rooms, the Cardinals pushed the lead to 13 and looked to run away in the second half.

However, the tides shifted very quickly in favor of EKU. The Colonels scored nine unanswered-points and quickly orchestrated an 18-5 run to take a 54-55 lead with only five minutes into the half.

The Cards ended the drought by going on a 12-0 run to make it 71-61 with just six minutes to go. Louisville once again put themselves in a position to pull away, but the Colonels came rushing back, taking a one-point lead with just over a minute to go via a George Kimble III triple.

Louisville missed two threes on the next possession, even after a called timeout to draw up a play. After giving the Colonels a chance to ice the game, the Cardinal defense held strong and forced a miss.

They quickly dished it to Reyne Smith down the court who, after nearly falling down, gave it to Waterman drove to the basket for a tightly contested layup. He finished the layup between two defenders with just 1.2 seconds left on the clock.

They say his name is Waterman, but he sure has ice in his veins.

Edwards Jr. intercepted the Colonels futile inbound pass and added a garbage time free throw.

Louisville walked away with a 78-76 home-victory.

No bad losses…

Just like the UTEP win, it was not pretty one bit but the Cardinals came out victorious.

The Cardinals have their lousy second half shooting to thank for how close this one became. Louisville shot a pathetic 37.5% from the field and 30.6% from deep, with a rash of turnovers as the icing on top.

Louisville did keep themselves in the game with the rebounding, gathering 15 more boards than EKU. In spite of the rebounding efforts, Louisville somehow scored the same amount of second chance points as EKU.

Fortunately, the Cardinals were able to snag back a fair bit of their missed points on free throws, making 19-of-24 compared to EKU’s 6-of-7, which made all of the difference in this affair.

Edwards Jr. ended the night with a team-leading 20 points to continue his recent tear, while J’Vonne Hadley picked up his fourth double-double of the season with 15 points and 10 rebounds.

Hepburn ended with 14 points and led the team with seven assists yet six turnovers. Smith and Waterman also provided boosts with a dozen points each.

The Cardinals improve to 7-5 on the year and will begin the bulk of conference play with North Carolina on New Year’s Day.

Photo Courtesy // Chris Carter, Louisville Athletics