Yesterday's Louisville Game Just Evened The Score

[Tugg Speedman]

Anyone remember this? ....

2/28/2003: Marquette 78, Louisville 73

A month after a dramatic win in Milwaukee (see later), the Cardinals lost a 19-point lead at home, a shot at the Conference USA title, and the heart and soul of their team all in one night.

Louisville led 46-35 at the break, but Cardinal (and Maverick) killer Dwayne Wade hit 8-of-11 shots and scored 19 points in the second half to lead the Golden Eagles all the way back and secure Conference USA Player of the Year honors. The game had been billed as a showdown between Wade and Reece Gaines, but Gaines was flustered all night, finishing with just 12 points on 4-11 shooting, and forced an awkward jumper in the last minute that missed badly and allowed Travis Diener to sink two game clinching free-throws (and scream after making both) on the other end.

But the biggest loss of the evening for the Cardinals didn't stem from the final score. After collecting one of his seven offensive rebounds on the night, junior center Ellis Myles went up for a follow, but landed awkwardly and immediately went down to the ground clutching his knee and screaming in agony.

Tom Crean began yelling and accused Myles of faking, when in fact the big man had torn his ACL and would be forced to miss the rest of the season as well as the entire 2003-2004 season. The two made amends before the aforementioned 47-point blowout game in 2005.

----

(class act by Crean)

Yesterday we lost an 18 point lead at Louisville.  In 2003 Louisville lost a 19 point lead against us at home.  We're even.

Wait that should not have happened because a few weeks earlier our soul was crushed ...

2/15/2003: Louisville 73, Marquette 70

Coming off of a 59-58 Wednesday loss to St. Louis, Reece Gaines and No. 2 Louisville broke the hearts of a record crowd at the Bradley Center that saw No. 11 Marquette's home-winning streak snapped at 28.

With the Cardinals leading 70-67, Marquette point guard Travis Diener came off of a screen and stroked a three-pointer to tie the game with 15.3 seconds to go.

Before Marquette fans even had a chance to stop high-fiving, Gaines had brought the ball down the floor and pulled up from well beyond the three-point line to deliver a dagger with six seconds remaining. Diener missed a desperation three at the buzzer.

"I knew that was the best shot I was going to get because I couldn't move to the basket," Gaines said. "They were going to trap me, and (force me) to pass it to somebody else."

Gaines finished with 20 points, including 4-of-6 from 3-point range, and Taquan Dean added 18 points for the Cardinals.

This is still the single greatest Louisville-related celebration I've ever been a part of. One second I'm sitting with five or six of my favorite depressed for the moment Cards fans in my buddy's basement, the next I'm in the middle of a pile-on on the other side of the room, and when I look over our host is running around the room holding his dog in the air.

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So much for the idea of soul crushing losses.  

Reminds me of the Wisconsin game last year.  We lost and Maymon quit.  Everyone hear concluded the seaon was over.  That was last year's soul crushing loss.  So, how did the rest of that season work out?

We spank DePaul on Tuesday and all is forgotten.  But ... we lose to DePaul ....

[TJ]

Go through all the games, all the close finishes... Mason, Novak, Garcia, Smith, Gaines, etc.  All the recent ones have gone the wrong way.  We really need to deliver a crushing loss to them for a change.

[DaCoach]

Perhaps your memory will go dead if we beat DePaul, but I promise most fans will not. Basketball isn't like flipping coins. Things don't even out or dynasties wouldn't occur. DePaul wouldn't have the record in the BE if things evened out. No, basketball teams that are successful learn from their mistakes. Somehow we seem to have too many Goundhog Days. We've learned tougher. Now it's time to do smarter.

[brewcity77]

Perhaps your memory will go dead if we beat DePaul, but I promise most fans will not.

If we beat DePaul by 82, I'll still be down about the Louisville loss. Honestly, even beating Notre Dame in their house wouldn't completely fix the Louisville hangover. I really think it would take winning 2 of our next 3 after DePaul, and that's assuming we beat DePaul. And if we don't get 2 out of ND, UConn, 'Cuse, and 'Nova, we are going to be in serious trouble as far as an NCAA bid goes. Go 1-3 in those games and we can't possibly afford any bad loss or we'll miss the Big Dance.

[77ncaachamps]

Still can't believe we lost at Louisville, but this has helped me smile again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6unMJayqnc

[RawdogDX]

"Wait that should not have happened because a few weeks earlier our soul was crushed ..."

Wow, i didn't realize that it was impossible to come back and win a few weeks later because our souls were crushed.  I guess you don't like the phrase because it implies that souls (which are immortal and needed to win the game) would not recover from being crushed.

This would also eliminate terms like Testicle Exploading loss because we would not be able to win after that happened...

hmm ... how about this.  I don't really believe in souls anyway so instead lets say that it was a "Unicorn Raping" loss.  Just because the players and fans had their unicorn raped that would not mean that we couldn't bounce back. 
I'd say it was the 2nd most brutal unicorn raping we've had behind the UW game, but that was mainly situational. (perhaps it was the unicorn's wedding night)
Hopefully buzz learns a lesson from watching his players have their unicorns raped and won't take his foot off the gas so early next time.