Atlanta Daily World

Louisville Counters With Old-Fashioned Team Effort to Top Michigan In NCAA Final

It took the experience and poise of a seasoned Louisville Cardinals squad to dispose of a tough, adrenaline-fueled Wichita State team on Saturday in order to advance to the NCAA final.

And it took that same effort two days later in their championship matchup against Michigan to first neutralize the shooting of the Wolverine's backcourt and then to overcome a 12-point deficit to defeat Michigan, 82-76, becoming the 2013 NCAA Division I Champions on Monday night.

Louisville ended its season with a 16-game winning streak before a crowd of 74,326 at the Georgia Dome.

Cardinals head coach Rick Pitino couldn't have been more proud of his team, particularly since the victory made him the first coach to win national titles at two different schools – the University of Kentucky in 1996 and now Louisville. Earlier on Monday, Pitino was also named to the latest NCAA Hall of Fame class.

But what motivated this Cardinals team to victory – having to come from double-digit deficits twice over the weekend, was the team's dedication to injured guard Kevin Ware...and the promise that if they won the title, coach Pitino would get a tattoo.

And while Ware watched attentively from the sidelines, not being able to play because of the devastating break to his tibia in the regional finals, he was certainly on the minds of his teammates who donned his No. 5 on the backs of their warm-up jackets.

"It's just amazing," senior guard Peyton Siva said.
"Kevin [Ware] was playing such a big part of it. For him to go down and everyone rally around him was a blessing."
But for Pitino, it's a matter of living up to a promise he gave his team some time ago: "About 12 to 13 games ago...they said 'If we win the National Championship, coach, you are getting a tattoo. I said 'Hell yeah I'm getting a tattoo,'" he recalled.

Despite allowing 38 first-half points against Michigan, the most the Cardinals have allowed since Syracuse scored 38 on Jan. 19, Louisville was able to settle into a team rhythm after rallying from behind that outlasted the Wolverines.

In the first half, Louisville struggled with containing Michigan's backcourt. Guards Trey Burke and Michael "Spike" Albrecht were having their way in the opening period, with Burke hitting his team's first seven points. But when Burke picked up his second foul at 11:09, and was called to the sideline by Coach John Beilein, Albrecht, a freshman, took over.

And took over is an understatement.

Coming into the game off the bench at the 15:34 mark in the opening period, averaging just 1.8 points per game, Albrecht scored 17 points in a span just over 11 minutes – including four 3-pointers. Going 6-for-7 from the field, 4-for-4 from beyond the arc, and 1-of-2 from the free-throw line, his fourth 3 put the Wolverines up by 10, 31-21. And at 3:56, his layup gave Michigan its largest lead of the game, 33-21.

But Louisville had been in this situation before, and junior Luke Hancock wasn't having any of it.

Beginning with two free-throws at 3:33 and his team trailing 33-21, Hancock put on a shooting clinic of his own by hitting four consecutive 3-pointers on a Cardinals 16-3 run, producing 14 straight points while cutting his team's deficit to one with 22 seconds left before the half. He managed to almost single-handedly negate all the damage Albrecht had done.

The shooting stats in the first half were impressive for both teams, especially from beyond the arc. Michigan went 6-for-11, or 54.5 percent from 3-point range, while Louisville hit 5-of-8, for 62.5 percent. In total, the Wolverine's shot 50 percent from the field in the first half and 55 in the second, compared to Louisville's 46.2 percent in the first half and 45.7 in the latter.

Hancock scored a team-high 22 points – tying his career best – and became the only reserve to win the Final Four Most Outstanding Player award. The junior forward went 5-for-6 from 3-point range in the final and 11-for-15 in the tournament.

"We went into war today against a great Michigan team," said Hancock following the game. "We needed to rally and we have done it a couple of games straight, being down. We just had to wait and make a run."

UConn Beats Notre Dame 83-65 To Reach Women's NCAA Final

(AP) – Geno Auriemma shook his head in amazement. With all the incredible players he has coached, he couldn't remember a better effort than the one Breanna Stewart had against Notre Dame.

Not with what was on the line.

The stellar freshman scored a career-high 29 points to go with four blocks and was seemingly everywhere in leading the Huskies back to the national championship game with an 83-65 win over the Fighting Irish - their nemesis of late - on Sunday night.

"Given the stage, and what was at stake I don't know that I've seen any bigger performance," Auriemma said. "I know there's been NCAA tournament games that we've had certain individuals play great, but I don't remember a player having a better game in this environment."

The Huskies will face Louisville in the title game Tuesday night, and it will be an all-Big East affair after the Cardinals rallied to beat California 64-57 in the other semifinal. UConn will be going for its eighth national championship to match Tennessee for the most in women's basketball history.

No team has dominated Auriemma's Huskies the way that the Irish had over the past few seasons. UConn (34-4) had lost the previous two national semifinals to the Irish and dropped three thrilling games this season to their rival.

Stewart and her teammates wouldn't let it happen again, ending the brilliant career of Notre Dame guard Skylar Diggins. She finished her last college game with 10 points, going a dismal 3-for-15 from the field.

"Once you get here you're only going to beat great teams. And the reason Notre Dame has beaten us seven of the last eight times is because they're really, really good," Auriemma said. "For one night, that's what's great about the NCAA tournament, for one night, for just this night, we just needed to be better than them, and we were."

The Huskies built a 10-point halftime lead playing incredible defense and Notre Dame (35-2) could only get within six in the second half as its school record 30-game winning streak came to an end.

The Huskies and Irish have developed the best rivalry in women's basketball over the past few seasons, and this game might have been the final chapter between the two with Notre Dame headed to the Atlantic Coast Conference next season.

Two years ago, the Huskies won the first three meetings before Notre Dame shocked them in the national semifinals. Notre Dame had won seven of the previous eight meetings before Sunday night and this one, for once, started slowly. Notre Dame went nearly 7 1/2 minutes without a field goal, missing 14 consecutive shots, and neither team led by more than four points for the first 16 minutes.

But trailing 26-25 with 3:44 left in the half, UConn started to take over. Bria Hartley, who has struggled all season while recovering from an ankle injury she suffered over the summer, was the spark. The junior guard started the spurt with a 3-pointer and added a nifty pullup moments later to make it 32-26.

After Notre Dame scored to pull within four, Morgan Tuck put back a miss and Stewart hit a 3-pointer. A Kelly Faris layup with 3.9 seconds left capped the burst and made it 39-29 at the break.

Diggins was 0-for-6 from the field in the first half as the Huskies harassed her all over the court. She scored the Irish's first two points on free throws and didn't have another point until getting a steal early in the second half and converting it for the easy layup to make it 42-35. The two-time All-American tried to do everything she could to rally her team, twice chasing down Hartley on the break to block her shot, but her shots weren't falling and her team was falling behind.

UConn led 50-43 with 12:22 left before Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis and Stewart hit back-to-back 3s to give the Huskies their biggest lead of the game.

Notre Dame wasn't done, their star freshman Jewell Loyd scoring five points during a 9-2 run to get the Irish within 61-55. That was as close as they could get as Stewart and UConn scored the next seven points to seal the victory.

"Notre Dame is a really good team and they make runs like that,'' Stewart said. "It's how we answer. We went on a run after they cut it to six."

Stewart was the most heralded freshman coming into the season, but struggled through the middle part of the year. But ever since the Big East tournament she's really been on a roll.

The 6-foot-4 budding star had 16 points in the loss to the Irish for the conference title and earned most outstanding player of the Bridgeport regional.

"It was really impressive to have a freshman have that type of game," Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw said. "To come into the Final Four and play with such confidence. You don't expect a freshman to rise to the occasion like that, phenomenal performance for her."

The loss ended an incredible season for Notre Dame, which lost only to Baylor before Sunday night. It also left Diggins without a national championship. She accomplished nearly everything else in her stellar career at the school, including helping her Irish turn around their rivalry against the Huskies.

Diggins said she spoke with Auriemma after the loss.

"Don't let this define my career,"' she said he told her, and that "I've done more for women's basketball than some people have done who have won four championships."

"He just told me I was a good player," she said. "You respect that coming from such a good coach."

Louisville Beats Michigan in Epic Game to Clinch NCAA Men's Basketball Title

Louisville Women Beat Cal 64-57 To Reach Title Game

(AP) – The more Louisville extends its remarkable run, the more coach Jeff Walz wants to make sure his Cardinals enjoy every moment.

As long as they have one more upset in them for the NCAA championship game.

The upstart Cardinals got 18 points – all on 3-pointers – from Antonita Slaughter and they methodically clawed back from a 10-point halftime deficit to beat California 64-57 on Sunday night in the NCAA semifinals.

For a team that has beaten Baylor, Tennessee and now the second-seeded Golden Bears, a little celebration was in order.

"We're going to go on Bourbon Street," said Walz, whose team has one last practice Monday before Tuesday night's title game. "I''ll tell the kids, as long as they're back by 2, we're OK."

Bria Smith scored 17 on 6-of-7 shooting for the fifth-seeded Cardinals (29-8), who became the first team seeded lower than fourth to win a Final Four game. The result ensures an all-Big East Conference final in the league's last season in its current form: Louisville will play Connecticut, which beat Notre Dame 83-65, one night after the Louisville men's team plays Michigan for the championship.

The Cardinals are the 10th school to have both basketball teams reach the Final Four in the same season. Only UConn won both titles in the same season, back in 2004.

"The way I look at it, I think the men are trying to feed off of our success," Walz said with a smirk before adding on a serious note that he'd received word from Atlanta that the Louisville men "were in the hotel lobby jumping up and down and cheering for us."

Layshia Clarendon scored 17 for Cal (32-4), which had won the Spokane Region as a second seed. Gennifer Brandon added 12 for the Golden Bears and Brittany Boyd added 10 points.

"Credit Louisville, which obviously has been really hot," Cal coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. "They outfought us in the second half."

It was the third straight upset by Louisville, which had to beat defending national champion Baylor and the powerful Lady Vols just to get to the Big Easy. They will need to summon one more to win it all. Not that they're worried about it.

"No one expects us to be here," Slaughter said. "No one expects us to be in the championship game. Just come together as a team and win as a team."

Shoni Schimmel, who had been one of the stars of the tournament, struggled early for Louisville, but finished with 10 points, including a clutch transition pull-up that gave Louisville a 57-54 lead with 2:06 left.

Clarendon responded with a left win 3 of her own to tie it, but Sara Hammond, playing with four fouls for the last 7:20, gave the Cardinals the lead for good with a strong move inside as she was fouled. Suddenly, Cal was forcing desperate 3s and not hitting them.

After shooting 58.6 percent (17-of-29) in the first half, Cal shot only 30 percent (9-of-30) in the second, negating the Bears' 38-26 advantage in rebounds.

"In the first half we got out a lot on the run. We didn't get a chance to run at all (in the second half) because we weren't getting stops," Clarendon said. "We made a lot of mistakes. It's not like we played somebody who was too good and just flat out beat us."

On Saturday night, the Louisville's men's team had to erase a 12-point second-half deficit against Wichita State, so the women didn't need much inspiration when they went into halftime trailing 37-27. They came out and quickly narrowed their deficit with a 7-0 run that began with Schimmel's 3. Smith added a mid-range jumper and Hammond scored inside to make it 37-34.

Cal was back up 47-39 when Clarendon spun into the lane for a pull-up jumper, but the Cardinals then scored the next seven points, starting with Slaughter's deep 3 and ending with Jude Schimmel's free throws that made it as close as 47-46.

The Cardinals finally pulled back into the lead when Hammond's free throws made it 53-52 with 3:40 left.

"We come out, we executed perfectly to start the second half," Walz said. "Once we took the lead, I could see it in our kids' eyes, the excitement, 'Hey, we can do this, we're going to do this.'

"We're playing our best basketball at the end of the year and that's all that matters,'' Walz added. "We're figuring out a way to pull them out.''

Before tip-off, Walz had the relaxed look of a coach who had been there before, which of course he had in 2009, when Louisville climbed out of a 12-point hole to beat Oklahoma State in the national semifinals before falling to Connecticut in the title game. He walked over to the Cal bench for a friendly chat with Gottlieb, giving her a hug before he walked back toward his bench, and then went across the court to welcome some fans in the front row.

Walz's team also appeared more composed in the first few minutes, racing to an 8-2 lead with the help of Slaughter's first 3 and a pair of layups by Smith. Smith's third basket inside the first five minutes gave Louisville a 10-6 lead, then Cal started to look more comfortable.

Talia Caldwell's putback marked the beginning of a 12-1 run, capped by Clarendon's transition jumper that gave the Golden Bears an 18-11 lead.

Jude Schimmel's 3 got Louisville as close as 25-22 midway through the half, but the Cardinals had trouble keeping pace while Shoni Schimmel, their leading scorer, missed six of her first seven shots.

Cal, which had won with strong rebounding all season, also controlled the game in that department, 23-11 overall and 8-3 in offensive rebounds in the first half. Complicating matters for Louisville was that Hammond, their leading rebounder (6.5 per game), sat out most of the half with two fouls.

Photo Coutesy of NCAA.com

Louisville forward Monique Reid (#33) shoots over California forward Reshanda Gray (#21) during the first half of semifinal action in the women’s Final Four at the New Orleans Arena. Louisville’s men’s and women’s teams advanced to this year’s NCAA championship making, it the 10th school to have both basketball teams reach the Final Four in the same season. UConn was the last to do it back in 2004.