COLLEGE BASKETBALL: Louisville will try to get off the NCAA Tournament bubble

Florida State overcame a sloppy first half to chip away at Louisville’s large lead, but it wasn’t enough to beat the Cardinals in the second round of the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament.

Kyle Guy led the way for the Cavs with 19 points and 7 rebounds. Tigers freshman Anthony Oliver II, who entered having hit four 3-pointers over 96 minutes of action all season, hit three in nine minutes against BC. Six of the team’s 12 losses came by five points or fewer, highlighted by an excruciating 67-66 loss to No. 1 Virginia. The Cavaliers had an extraordinarily low turnover percentage of 7.8 (better than their season average of 13.0) and had a free throw rate of 0.300 (above their season average of 0.186). They got it into the paint more, cutting the lead down to four points on an Elijah Thomas and-one – flexing in celebration before he went to the free-throw line.

For the Cardinals, they’ll return home and watch Sunday’s NCAA Selection Show together. “I think we’ve got to keep fighting”. “They know what’s at stake, they know where we are, they know what the situation is”.

That means that guys like Gabe DeVoe, Marcquise Reed, Shelton Mitchell, and others need to get going.

They rebounded the ball well, and actually had more offensive rebounds that Louisville but failed to capitalize in those situations. “And Coach [Padgett] does a great job of just making sure we just focus on ourselves and not worry about anything that’s happening in the media or in the outside world”.

Guy subsequently hit his third 3-pointer of the half as the Cavaliers took a 32-23 lead to the locker room. Louisville and the Seminoles split their two regular-season meetings with the road team winning each time.

The teams combined for 21 blocked shots, a single-game record in the tournament.

Virginia responded with a 20-5 run, forcing Louisville into contested shots. He went 3-for-3 from three-point range in the first half, made 4 of 6 from the outside, and his confidence was infectious. “Going into it, we have to have a mindset of trying to come out and punch first”. “I thought we played with a tremendous amount of energy and we forced them into some indecision and got some deflections and blocks, got some stops”. Deng Adel finished with 13 and V.J. King had 11. The Tigers had the eighth-ranked defense by efficiency entering Saturday’s game, but BC opened it up in the second half and rode an inspired effort from its guards.