Louisville fights off upset-minded Siena
DAYTON, Ohio — Louisville earned the NCAA Tournament’s overall top seed by winning the Big East regular-season title with just two losses, then riding its fearsome pressure to three consecutive victories in the Big East Tournament.
But it took a tougher-than-expected 79-72 victory over Siena in the second round to convince Cardinals coach Rick Pitino he had the nation’s top team.
“Are we the No. 1 ranked team?” Pitino said. “We won the regular season and Big East, but I still had seeds of doubt. I thought we were doing it with tremendous hustle, tremendous heart, but I wanted to see what they went through tonight where they’re down four, it’s late in the game [and you] have to make the big plays. They did.”
One Cardinal in particular allowed Louisville (30-5) to become the fifth Big East team — a record for any conference — to move on to the Sweet 16 where it will play No. 12 Arizona on Friday in a Midwest Regional semifinal in Indianapolis: senior forward Terrence Williams, T-Will to his coach and teammates.
“He took the game over and made the big plays,” Pitino said.
Siena (27-7) used a 12-0 run that turned a 59-51 deficit with 11:50 left into a 63-59 lead with 7:45 left when Clarence Jackson finished a fast break with layup.
“Yeah, we thought we had them,” said Siena senior guard Kenny Hasbrouck, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference’s Player of the Year who had 11 points. “We were running them up and down.”
The 6-foot-6 Williams, however, quickly scored the next five points, part of his team-best 24 points.
Williams, who finished 9 for 14 from the field, scored on an offensive rebound with seven minutes left to make it 63-61, and his three-pointer from the corner with 4:52 left gave the Cardinals a 64-63 lead. Though there were some tense moments thereafter, Louisville did not trail again.
Williams hit 4 of 6 three-pointers and grabbed a game-best 15 rebounds. He added four assists and two steals.
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