The Louisville Cardinals defeated the Oregon Ducks to advance to the Elite Eight at the 2013 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. With great defense and contributions from everybody, the Cardinals were able to stop the Ducks who had been upsetting everybody in the tournament. The Cardinals won 77-69.
Russ Smith led the team on offense scoring 31 points, 14 of which came in the first half of the game. Gorgui Deng guarded the Louisville paint with four blocks on the night as well as dropping 14 points for the Cardinals.
The Cardinals lived on the Ducks' paint scoring 20 of their first 26 points from close range, penetrating and pushing the ball down the court whenever the Oregon defense was too slow to get back.
Louisville had to play without their floor general, Peyton Siva as he quickly picked up two fouls in the opening minutes of the game. However, this was not a problem for the Cardinals as their role players stepped up to fill in Siva's contributions.
It was all Louisville in this one early on despite Siva's absence. Siva exited the game with 15:19 and the score was 10-5 in favor of the Cardinals. They finished that half outscoring the Ducks 35-26 and took a 45-31 lead into the half.
Because of their double-digit lead, Louisville was able to survive brief cold spells. Whenever the Ducks made a run, Louisville was able to slow them down. With 5:35 remaining, Oregon trimmed a once 16-point lead down to just six points.with the scoreboard reading 64-70. However, Louisville stringed together a couple of baskets and took back the double-digit lead.
The Ducks were able to make this brief run thanks to guys like E.J. Singer who had 19 points, Dominic Artis knocked down 12 points and Arsala Kazemi kept Oregon in the rebound game grabbing 11 boards and scoring 10 points for a double-double.
Now up for Louisville in the Elite Eight, they face the winner of Michigan St. vs. Duke.
