NCAA Tournament Louisville Region Third Round
With only 4 games in each region, there will be no more splitting of regions. 4 games, 1 pod. There were a couple choices for game of the pod, but I went with:
(9) St. Johns vs. (1) Louisville -- When Louisville's Luke Hancock made a corner three pointer to give the Cardinals a 25-14 lead, it looked like Louisville would run away to the Sweet Sixteen. But St. Johns coach Steve Lavin wasn't going to let his team give up that easy. He took a timeout, laid into his team, and the result was a St. Johns 14-4 run to end the half, including scoring 10 of the last 12 points to make the halftime deficit a mere point, 29-28. The Red Storm would continue that run, scoring the first 4 points of the second half to take a 32-29 lead. From that point on, there would be an amazing 17 lead changes and 4 ties, in the second half alone! Hancock rescued Louisville again with a minute and a half to go and St. Johns up 64-60, as he buried another three pointer. Then Stephan Van Treese would score the next 4 Louisville points as the Cardinals took a 67-66 lead. Montrezl Harrell would add a free throw and a Sir Dominic Pointer hail mary shot fell way short as
Louisville moves on to the Sweet Sixteen with a 68-66 victory! D'Angelo Harrison led the Red Storm with 18 points, while Louisville was led by Russ Smith with 20 points.
Other Pod Games
(12) Green Bay- 67, (4) Wichita St.- 65 -- This one hurts, bad. I was looking forward to seeing a WIS sim between Louisville and Wichita St., but it wasn't to be. Keifer Sykes led Green Bay with 14 points and Ron Baker led WSU with 18 points. Now 2 of my 3 Kansas teams are out.
(14) Georgia St.- 67, (6) Utah- 58 -- 13.6% shooting for three point land doomed the Utes in this one. Ryan Harrow led Georgia St. with 18 points while Utah was led by Dallin Bachynski who had 12.
(7) LSU- 79, (2) Iowa- 63 -- LSU trailed by 1 at halftime, but shot over 65% in the second half in their destruction of the Hawkeyes. Anthony Hickey led LSU with 22 and Roy Devyn Marble led Iowa with 15.
So it wasn't a good round for higher seeds, as only Louisville comes out on top, setting up some definitely unexpected Sweet Sixteen games out of the Louisville region:
(12) Green Bay vs. (1) Louisville
(13) Georgia St. vs. (7) LSU