Coming into Thursday’s senior night matchup against the #1 Virginia Cavaliers, the Louisville Cardinals were among Joe Lundardi’s last four in as a bubble team. This team knew that with a big game against the Hoos that they could likely secure their place in the field of 68. Louisville led for most of the first half, including being up by 10 at one point. It seemed all game as if the Cardinals were just beating Virginia at their own slow-paced game. Virginia stormed back to tie the game with about two minutes left and it seemed as if they had all of the momentum. Ryan McMahon, a 91% free throw shooter for Louisville, had multiple chances to put the game away. He missed two free throws in the final 39 seconds to keep the Cavs just hanging around. Despite all of this, Louisville held a 4 point lead with two seconds left. That was good enough, right? Think again.
Ty Jerome was fouled on a three point attempt with 0.9 seconds left in the game, down by 4. He would go on to make the first two free throws, missing the second one on purpose in hopes of a rebound. After a lane violation, all that the Cardinals needed to do was make the inbounds pass. They did the opposite of that. Senior Deng Adel attempted to run the baseline while passing in the ball, which can only be done after a made basket, and was hit with a traveling violation. Virginia ball. Then.. this happened:
OH MY!!! It is indeed March. #Virginia wins on a bank shot at the buzzer#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/9w0SpP8QE7
— Bradley Evans (@RadBradEvans) March 2, 2018
This was an insane ending to the game and Twitter could not believe it either.
How the hell did Louisville lose that?
— Big Cat (@BarstoolBigCat) March 2, 2018
It went from Louisville with a 95.2% chance to win to Virginia winning in six seconds. pic.twitter.com/Ud2dRLeZR5
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanDFischer) March 2, 2018
In a matter of 0.9 seconds of game time, Louisville went from a four point lead over the best team in the country and a surefire path into the tournament to quite possibly the NIT. Things like this are what makes college basketball exciting. You never know what’s going to happen when you put a bunch of teenagers and twenty-some year olds in high pressure situations. Louisville now just needs to hold on for hope that they will be in the Big Dance.