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The ghosts of the Edmund P. Joyce Center continue to haunt Louisville basketball.
Despite owning an 11-point second half lead, U of L once again failed to get the job down in South Bend, falling to Notre Dame 71-66 on Saturday afternoon. The defeat marked the Cardinals' sixth straight road loss to the Fighting Irish, who were the only Big East team Rick Pitino failed to beat away from home.
Louisville used some hot outside shooting to carry a 43-36 lead into the locker room at halftime, and then utilized the same weapon to extend that lead to 11 after the break. But a six minute drought, a handful of careless turnovers, and some uncharacteristically poor rebounding against a much smaller Notre Dame team ultimately doomed the Cards to their second straight defeat.
As painful as these past eight days have been for the Louisville players, I'm not sure these next couple of weeks are going to be any easier. The Cards have now all but lost out on their final goal of winning the ACC's regular season title, leaving pride as the only thing this team has left to play for. Pride is a terrific motivator, but sometimes pride alone doesn't stack up favorably against teams that are playing for both pride and the dream of realizing their postseason goals.
Here's your box score:
|
Louisville Cardinals |
||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| STARTERS | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | OREB | DREB | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PF | PTS | ||
| Jaylen Johnson, F | 0-4 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Chinanu Onuaku, F | 3-6 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 6 | ||
| Quentin Snider, G | 3-9 | 1-3 | 5-6 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 12 | ||
| Trey Lewis, G | 4-9 | 1-4 | 2-2 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 11 | ||
| Damion Lee, G | 4-13 | 4-9 | 1-2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 13 | ||
| BENCH | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | OREB | DREB | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PF | PTS | ||
| Matz Stockman, C | 2-2 | 0-0 | 2-2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 6 | ||
| Anas Mahmoud, F | 0-1 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | ||
| Raymond Spalding, F | 3-5 | 0-0 | 2-2 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 8 | ||
| Deng Adel, F | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| Donovan Mitchell, G | 4-9 | 2-4 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 10 | ||
| TOTALS | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | OREB | DREB | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PF | PTS | ||
| 23-58 | 8-20 | 12-14 | 9 | 20 | 29 | 11 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 18 | 66 | |||
| 39.7% | 40.0% | 85.7% | ||||||||||||
| Notre Dame Fighting Irish | ||||||||||||||
| STARTERS | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | OREB | DREB | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PF | PTS | ||
| V.J. Beachem, F | 2-9 | 1-4 | 0-1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 5 | ||
| Zach Auguste, F | 4-8 | 0-0 | 3-4 | 1 | 11 | 12 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 11 | ||
| Bonzie Colson, F | 3-8 | 0-0 | 2-2 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 8 | ||
| Demetrius Jackson, G | 7-15 | 6-12 | 7-7 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 27 | ||
| Steve Vasturia, G | 8-13 | 2-4 | 2-2 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 20 | ||
| BENCH | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | OREB | DREB | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PF | PTS | ||
| Matt Ryan, F | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0-0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Rex Pflueger, G | 0-3 | 0-2 | 0-0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | ||
| TOTALS | FGM-A | 3PM-A | FTM-A | OREB | DREB | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO | PF | PTS | ||
| 24-56 | 9-22 | 14-16 | 13 | 28 | 41 | 9 | 4 | 4 | 9 | 10 | 71 | |||
| 42.9% | 40.9% | 87.5% | ||||||||||||
Technical Fouls: PLAYERS: None - TEAMS: None