The Louisville Cardinals defeated the Wichita St. Shockers in the Final Four of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament to advance to the 2013 National Championship. The Cardinals received a surprise performance from Luke Hancock and their defense stepped it up late in the game.
Hancock led the way scoring dropping 20 points to give his team a dominant performance when they needed it most as they made a double-digit comeback with less than 10 minutes left in the game.
With 14:17 to play, the Shockers took a double-digit lead as Cotton dropped a layup after a Russ Smith turnover. The scoreboard read 43-32 and the pressure was on Louisville.
Wichita State took a 26-25 lead into the half. Siva couldn't knockdown a jumper to give Louisville a lead at the end of the first 20 minutes. Louisville had issues getting their offense rolling in the second half. The Shockers began the second half on a 17-7 run to take a double-digit lead.
The Cardinals were able to turn the tide and make a come-from-behind victory avoiding the upset. They turned it up in the final minutes of the game. Whatever Wichita St. was able to do in the first 30 minutes of the game, Louisville took away and began doing themselves. Wichita St. barely committed turnovers, but they continuously coughed up the ball late in the game and Louisville, for the most part capitalized.
In the first half, Louisville had trouble keeping the ball. They committed seven turnovers and made just seven shots in 20 minutes of action. On the other hand, Wichita State committed only four turnovers in the first half. The Cardinals also had issues rebounding and the Shockers made them pay on offensive rebounds.
Wichita State depended on Cleanthony Early with 24 points and Carl Hall who had 13 points. They used their speed to get by the Cardinals giving them a hard to stay in front on defense and quickly got Louisville in foul trouble. The Louisville defense wasn't as prevalent without Gorgui Dieng who had four fouls early in the second half.
Russ Smith held his own in the first half scoring 11 points and keeping his team in the game. The bench players, who came into play for an injured Kevin Ware, stepped it up as Tim Harrison, Hancock and Montrezl Harris combined to score 34 points.
Peyton Siva struggled throughout the game, which wasn't a good sign for the Cardinals early on. He didn't make his first field goal until 7:54 remaining in the game. He finished with just five points. Louisville also struggled from the floor later on sinking less than 30 percent from three. They began knocking down threes out of desperation and began sinking shot after shot. After trailing by as many as 12 points, back-to-back threes from Henderson shrunk the lead to just six points with 11:45 remaining in the game.
It looked like Wichita St. still had the game under control as Cotton was able to sink a big three keeping their lead back up to six as the Cardinals went on a 12-3 run for almost four minutes. Wichita St. was able to remain composed under the Cardinals' Press as they were continuously able to bring the ball up after the Cardinals began knocking down shots.
However, the Cardinals got the Shockers to commit back-to-back turnovers. The Shockers couldn't get to the basket as easily as they had done in the first half.
Louisville now awaits the winner between the Syracuse Orange and Michigan Wolverines.
