By Harry Barsan
Louisville defeated the Pitt Panthers in a thrilling game from start to finish.
With their win, Louisville snapped Pitt’s home-winning-streak at 15 games, and snapped Louisville’s overall losing-streak against Pitt at five.
A game of runs
Both teams started slow, each putting forth four scoreless possessions before buckets from James Scott and Reyne Smith gave the Cards a 5-0 lead.
The Panthers got themselves into a groove by way of a 10-0 run. Chucky Hepburn tried to force the issue and drive to the basket, but he only managed to score one bucket during a 15-2 Pitt run.
After taking a 10-18 lead, Louisville kicked things into gear on both sides of the ball.
Five different Cards scored and Pitt went scoreless for over six minutes of play during a 14-2 run. At the end of the run, Louisville held a 26-20 lead.
Pitt managed to inch their way back, but still stayed behind for the rest of the first half.
With the shot clock turned off and a three-point lead, Louisville had a chance to rip out the soul of the Oakland Zoo. But Terrence Edwards Jr. had a horrendous turnover, and Jaland Lowe hit two free throws right before the break.
The half ended with Louisville ahead by a slight margin of 35-34.
Down to the wire
Louisville started the second half on fire, slowly inching their lead out to six points while playing commanding defense.
It took Pitt over four minutes to make their first field goal. However, it was a three-pointer and was followed up by another triple to give Pitt their first lead of the half.
A breakaway layup from Lowe would give the Panthers a three-point lead.
Louisville managed to claw back into the game, quieting the crowd just enough to lessen their impact.
Pitt would continue to roll, though, digging Louisville deeper into a five-point hole. From there, Louisville would go on an 8-2 run that was capped off by a three from Smith to give the Cards the lead.
Pitt responded with a triple from Ishmael Leggett to reclaim the lead, but Louisville tied it up at 57-57 off of two free throws from Edwards.
On the very next possession, Hepburn got a steal and hit the gas pedal on the fastbreak. He found a trailing Smith who splashed his fifth three of the night to make it a three-point lead for Louisville.
However, Pitt scored on back-to-back possessions to give the Panthers the lead. But Smith would match it with a drive and a contested layup to tie the game at 62.
After enduring some early foul trouble thanks to Pitt’s contact heavy-approach, J’Vonne Hadley scored on back-to-back possessions fresh off the bench before an alley oop to Scott made it 69-64.
Louisville’s lead grew as high as five points when Hepburn made made a three of his own, but Pitt came storming back after a 6-0 run that was started when Edwards fouled a three-point shooter.
Out of a timeout for Pat Kelsey to settle down his team, Smith hit yet another three quick off the inbound to give Louisville back the lead 75-73.
After some Pitt free throws tied it with just two minutes to spare, Smith nailed a mid-range two before sinking yet another deep, contested three.
However, Leggett match with a nasty tap step and a triple of his own to cut the score down to 80-78.
With just a one-possession lead and 1:06 left on the clock, the Cards had a chance to ice the game. Louisville milked the clock, but found themselves in a precarious situation with the ball on the floor. The Cards called their final timeout with just five seconds left on the shot clock.
On the set play, Hadley took a three, but missed it only to come up with his own rebound. With the shot clock reset, Louisville killed even more time before a bad foul by Leggett reset the clock again.
With an eight-second difference between the shot and game clocks, Hepburn drove in and hit the dagger to bring the lead to four points.
Pitt tried to make magic happen, but both of their shot attempts came up short.
Louisville stole the win 82-78.
When it Reynes, it pours
Smith had himself a night.
He made quick work of the Pitt defense late in the second, finding chance after chance on the way to scoring a team-leading 25 points on 7-of-11 from three, his most makes of the season.
Beyond Smith’s stellar night, the Cards found great success tonight from deep. Louisville’s quantity over quality approach from the field worked very well, shooting 37.1% from beyond the arc.
While they shot their third most shots of the year (68), their 17 huge offensive boards led to 22 crucial second chance points compared to Pitt’s seven. The offensive rebounding in a highly physical game was the difference maker.
Hepburn played well tonight, too, scoring 15 and dishing a team-leading seven assists. Edwards and Hadley scored 14 and 13 points, respectively, each picking up five boards despite Hadley finding himself in foul trouble for much of the game.
While Louisville’s defense held many of Pitt’s players to below average numbers from the field, that couldn’t stop a few players from going off from deep and capitalizing from the charity stripe. Pitt shot 47.6% from three and and 90.9% from the stripe.
Thankfully however, Louisville can find success even when the numbers suggest they shouldn’t.
The Cards picked up a massive quad-1 victory that will go a long way toward their tournament resume.
Louisville now sits at 12-5 on the year and 5-1 in the ACC, as their winning-streak hit six game. This is the largest winning-streak for the Cards since the 2019-20 season.
The Cards will travel to the JMA Wireless Dome at Syracuse and take on the Orange on Tuesday.
Photo Courtesy // Mallory Peak, Louisville Athletics