By Harry Barsan

The Cards fall to the Miami Hurricanes 78-73 in the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament.

You again?

After playing no longer than five days ago, these evenly matched squads were set to duke it out for the chance to play Virginia tomorrow.

After his strong showing against the Hurricanes last game, Ryan Conwell found his first basket in the opening minute.

Neither team could stretch out even an inch of comfort. The game stayed within one possession all the way until the Cards unleashed a 10-0 run to take a 20-13 lead at the midpoint of half one.

The tides turned in just a couple of minutes. While Ryan Conwell cashed a three, Miami put up five buckets to Louisville’s one to reclaim the lead. J’Vonne Hadley pushed the needle with his second three to take it back with seven to go.

Conwell won the race to 10 points with his 10th and 11th coming on free throws. Hadley, shortly after reaching his tenth as well, missed his chance to reclaim the lead before capitalizing the chance on the next possession with a fast-break score.

Rooths would get a piece of that action too, retaking the lead on a bucket of his own the very next possession.

A few late possessions would fizzle out as the Cards held onto a tight 38-37 lead into the half.

 Just short

We wasted no time getting to party in half two. At least, Miami didn’t. They scored on their first five possessions and took the game’s biggest lead of eight.

After Pat and the boys took a moment to regroup in a timeout, Khani Rooths sank his first three.

The Cards traded buckets over the next several minutes and couldn’t get this game hardly any closer. They squandered four straight possessions before Sananda Fru found an easy lay-in to make it six.

After a noisy first half, Conwell spent much of the second relatively silent from the field. When they needed him most down the stretch, he picked up the next gear and scored on consecutive possessions as the lead shrank to four.

After yet another bucket and and-1 conversion, the lead was just one.

Miami stole the lead with a score off of a turnover, but Conwell cashed a pair of free throws a bit later to keep it close.

The going got really tough down the stretch. With just a minute and change to go and a tip-in from McKneely to make it 69-68 Miami, the Hurricanes really put the pressure on.

A costly mistake by Conwell gave Miami two free throws, which they promptly scored on. And while Conwell made amends with a jumper, it was just too little, too late.

With Miami in the driver’s seat and time winding down, Miami used all their leverage to bleed the clock down to death. Louisville was rejected on multiple possessions, including literally when Miami blocked a Conwell three, taking it the other way for the Cane’s final score of the game.

Miami would come out on top 78-73.

There’s always next week

Louisville’s ACC tourney hopes fall a few days short. There is plenty to be satisfied with, but almost as much to be quite the opposite.

The Cards shot plenty better in the first than in the second. They made three 3’s in each half, but it took double the attempts in the second. 56% from the field became just a little over 40% and the Cards weren’t given much grace from free throws.

A 6-24 performance from three is less than optimal, but credit where it is due we’ve seen plenty worse before.

Individually, we saw a polar night from conwell as he scored 22 despite a large gap for the majority of the second half. J’Vonne Hadley scored 19 on much better efficiency and picked up two blocks as well.

Khani Rooths picked up 11 points on very limited minutes, his most points since playing Wake Forest.

The Cards made a convincing case for themselves all year long, and while an early exit in the conference tourney is never a good thing, it could always be worse.

We will wait and see where these Cardinals are flying to for this year’s rendition of March Madness, likely as the sixth or seventh seed.