No. 12 Miami rallies past No. 11 Louisville 73-65

Miami guard James Palmer (12) and forward Kamari Murphy (21) celebrate in the final seconds of the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Louisville, Saturday, Feb. 27, 2016, in Coral Gables, Fla.

With 5:12 left though, Donovan Mitchell hit a layup to quiet the Miami crowd and to put the Cardinals up 62-58.

In a heated game for sole possession of second place in the ACC, No. 12 Miami topped No. 11 Louisville 73-65 on the Hurricanes’ senior day at the BankUnited Center. “Once we started getting stops, it seemed like the basket opened up”.

It was the final home game for seniors Jekiri, McClellan, Rodriguez and Ivan Cruz Uceda.

“A very emotional day”, said Rodriguez, whose family flew in from his native Puerto Rico for the game.

Miami trailed 56-51 with 8 minutes left before Rodriguez took over the game.

“We’re proud of our performance; we played a great game”, Pitino said. Personally after coaching 41 years I’ll look back and appreciate this team so much. It was here that the experience shined through relative to the inexperienced Cardinals, who simply couldn’t get reliably in and out of their offensive sets late as Rodriguez, Reed and Sheldon McClellan provided heavy pressure. This year he is light and doing all the smart things.

The Cardinals are hoping for a return from Raymond Spalding, who missed the Pitt game with a groin injury, but coaches weren’t sure. “But I’ll appreciate this team so much”.

“Both teams played really good basketball, fun basketball”, Pitino said. The two teams are now tied for second place in the conference behind North Carolina. He frowned when asked why his team went cold late in the game. “They’ll play just like they did tonight, they may get beat but they’ll play just like they did tonight”. “They were pressuring our guards a lot”. Lee has still played himself into a decent draft pick, averaging 16.6 points and 4.0 rebounds while shooting 37 percent from long range while Lewis is putting up 11.7 points with the same three-point percentage.

UofL down the stretch had a tough time staying in front of Miami Point Guard Angel Rodriguez and the rest of the Canes. Newton, UM’s third-leading scorer (10.9 points per game), committed a violation of team rules, according to UM.

The self-imposed ban for the sex scandal has seemed to galvanize the Cardinals rather than deflate them. “Rodriguez picked us apart in the end”.

A capacity crowd roared as the Hurricanes staged their comeback. On the flip side, Miami is a ideal 8-0 this season in ACC games at home so the Cardinals will have to break that streak as well.

TV: ACC Network, WHAS-11 in Louisville (Tim Brant play-by-play, Jason Capel analyst). Center against Georgia Tech (17-12, 7-9), which has won four straight.

During a timeout with less than 10 minutes remaining in the Hurricanes’ final home game of the season, Head Coach Jim Larrañaga only wanted to talk to one player. Besides the impact for this season, it was also the first time in school history that Miami had beaten two Top 15 teams in consecutive games.