By God, we WON the last one, over #1 !!! Cards 78 Cuse 68
Posted by frankpos on March 6, 2010
“I’ve been very fortunate to coach in four Final Fours and two championships. I always just treated it as being very, very lucky to be in those games as a coach. I never really felt pressure. Tonight I felt pressure for the first time as a coach.
“There were so many festivities. All the guys were coming back. The NCAA berth being on the line. The No. 1 team in the country. The closing of Freedom Hall.
“I got up at about 2 (a.m.) and said ‘What if we lose?”
Coach Rick Pitino, on the pressure of winning the last game at Freedom Hall.
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The last game of all time in Freedom Hall.
Against the #1 ranked team.
After one of the worst losses of the year.
A record crowd of 20,135 fans packing the Hall hours before the game–and in their seats and standing 30 minutes before game time
The frenzy of the pre-game dark, alive with 20,000 fans in full cry, waving red -lighted, blinking towels
All the legends of U of L in witness, including Never Nervous, Griff, and the McCrays
And then…and then …the comeback in the second half, like the Cardiac Cards of old
Fueled by the Cheerleader, Rob Hickerson, spelling out the loudest Cards cheers EVER
And the hearts and souls and throats of 20,000 human beings, burning for victory
With Siva igniting the energy and Kuric igniting the Hall, with 3′s and slam jams straight out of the Doctors of Dunk
We won
My God , we won
And when it was over
When it was finally and so sweetly over
I cried.
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It would have been so, so wrong.
But now it is so right.
FOREVER.
With an exclamation point, the Cards ended their 54 year run at storied Freedom Hall by stunning #1 Syracuse 78-68.
In those 50+ years, U of L has met seven #1 ranked opponents in the Hall. They leave the Hall with a winning 4-3 record against that gauntlet. And Coach Pitino leaves with a 3-1 record against #1′s in the Hall.
What does that say about the great coaching at U of L over the years?
What does it say about the great fans in the Hall?
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Anvillian does the work of God for Cards fans…video masterpiece of the Game…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zevk8jgf9gA&feature=player_embedded
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Rick Bozich of the C-J marveled:
http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/bozich/2010/03/video-kyle-kurics-big-day.html
“Kuric scored all 22 points in the final 14 minutes and 25 seconds of the second half.
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Understand this: Kuric had only scored in double figures three times in 27 games this season. He made four three-point shots after making only 13 in the first 27 games.
His season high had been 13 points against Louisiana Lafayette on Dec. 23. He had only scored 19 total points in Louisville’s first 13 Big East games.”
Kyle’s dunk at 2:49 to finish Syracuse (courtesy of DocCardsFan of Card Chronicle):
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Pat Forde, ESPN:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=4971890
Can a building really have magic?
….In a mind-boggling span of 13 minutes and 41 seconds, Kuric scored all 22 of his points. In that same span, the top-ranked team in the country scored 22. His ability to single-handedly play the Orange to a standstill allowed the Cardinals to surge from three down and on the bubble to 13 ahead and in the NCAA field.
….After he flushed an alley-oop from Preston Knowles with 2:44 left for a 14-point Louisville lead, the building erupted. It was the loudest I’ve heard it in the Hall in more than two decades of covering games here.
….Afterward, when the former players were invited onto the floor for Senior Day festivities, many of them made their way to Kuric to congratulate him.
Someone asked Kuric if they knew who he was.
“They do now,” he responded.”
That’s about as close as you’ll get to swagger from the kid…
“He’s just so shy,” Pitino said. “I’ve never met a person like him. Even when he yells, it’s a shy yell.”
….With a memorable magic act, Freedom Hall was finished.
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“The seniors have never gone to the NIT. And now they never will.”
Coach Pitino, addressing the crowd when the game was over.
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They all came today. all the legends, all the greats in U of L lore.
Never Nervous, Griff, the McCrays, and of course, Coach Denny Crum, who is the principal reason our two national championships and our national prominence.
The first true great player that established Louisville as a basketball power could not be there. Charlie Tyra died in 2006 at the age of 71.
But his family was there, and shared their memories with Antoinette Konz of the C-J:
“Vince and Terry Tyra have a lot of wonderful memories involving Freedom Hall, so it was only fitting for the two brothers to attend the last Cardinals basketball game to ever be played there.
After all, in the first University of Louisville basketball game to be played at Freedom Hall on Dec. 22, 1956, their father – Charlie Tyra – scored 40 points in the 85-75 win over Notre Dame.
“This is definitely the greatest memory I’ll have of this place,” Vince Tyra said shortly after U of L defeated No. 1 Syracuse 78-68 in front of a standing-room only crowd of 20,135. “We came in on a victory and we’re leaving on a victory. This is something I will never forget.”
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Faith Richards said
Good info. Thanks for sharing. I will surely be back around again and again!