Louisville Overcomes Duke, Injury to Move to Final Four

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Louisville players huddle after guard Kevin Ware was taken out of the game after an injury.

INDIANAPOLIS�March can be as cruel as it is mad: The best team in college basketball doesn't always win the NCAA tournament, or even get to the last weekend of the NCAA tournament, which is why filling out a bracket sometimes feels like spinning around while blindfolded and pinning the tail on a donkey.

But this year's NCAA tournament, despite all the upsets and shockers and Florida Gulf Coasts, actually makes sense. It has been clear for the past two weeks that the best team in college basketball is Louisville. Now the Cardinals are off to the Final Four�and they're widening the gap between them and everyone else.

In a Midwest regional final Sunday that had been billed as a matchup worthy of next Monday's national championship, No. 1 overall seed Louisville looked as if no other team belonged on the same court. The Cardinals knocked out No. 2 seed Duke, 85-63, to clinch the last spot in the national semifinals, where they will play Wichita State, the No. 9 seed from the West, on Saturday.

Their weapon of choice Sunday wasn't a surprise. No team has given up fewer points per possession than Louisville since 2003, when kenpom.com, the advanced basketball statistics website, started tracking defensive efficiency. In other words, Louisville has the best defense of the past decade. Louisville forced 12 Duke turnovers with 10 steals, held the Blue Devils to just one field goal over an 11-minute stretch in the second half and made an adventure out of something as simple as Duke's guards trying to cross halfcourt.

Heart-Stopping Moment

As medical personnel swarmed Ware in front of the Cardinals' bench, his teammates fell to the ground, horrified. Did the injury affect things? It feels like such a crass question. Of course it affected things, writes Jason Gay.

Related coverage

• Ware Suffers Gruesome Leg Injury
• When the Madness Ends

The Cardinals were just as impressive on the other side of the court. Russ Smith, the fabulous guard so manic that Louisville coach Rick Pitino nicknamed him "Russdiculous" and once threatened to ship him to a different planet, was named the region's most outstanding player after scoring 23 points Sunday. Smith, such a virtuosic scorer that no one minds when he skips the rebounding portion of pre-game layup lines, also poured in 31 points against Oregon on Friday and had 50 points in his first two NCAA tournament games.

His backcourt mate Peyton Siva, the yin to Smith's yang, added 16 points of his own and keyed the sequence that all but punched Louisville's ticket to its second straight national semifinal. Duke had tied the game at 42 on a Seth Curry three-pointer and Mason Plumlee dunk when Pitino called timeout with 16:18 left in the second half. Here's how Louisville responded: Smith converted a three-point play, Siva swished a jumper from the top of the key and, on the next possession, slithered through the lane for a layup that sent a shockwave through the predominantly Louisville crowd inside Lucas Oil Stadium. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski burned a timeout, and Louisville forward Chane Behanan held up four fingers to the partisans behind the Louisville bench.

The stoppage of play didn't slow down the Cardinals. Siva sliced into the paint again and handed off a layup to Louisville center Gorgui Dieng, who finished with 14 points. Siva then stretched the lead to 53-44 with a transition layup. And after Duke forward Ryan Kelly missed a three-pointer, Dieng drilled a jumper from the top of the key. "Our offense won the game," Pitino said, "because it was wearing them out defensively."

What might be the lasting memory from Sunday, though, was a gruesome injury suffered by Louisville guard Kevin Warein the first half. Ware broke his right leg and was removed from the court on a stretcher after 10 minutes. He was in surgery Sunday night and was expected to remain overnight at Methodist Hospital. Pitino said the horrific injury wouldn't be career-ending.

The sight of Ware writhing in pain cast a long shadow over an Elite Eight matchup that was as alluring as they come. It pitted the nation's best defense against what might've been the best offense. Both programs are proud blue bloods that believe their region is the most rabid for college basketball. There was also Pitino across the court from Krzyzewski, and all that happened the last time Pitino and Krzyzewski met in the NCAA tournament in 1992 was the greatest college-basketball game ever, a regional final between Duke and Kentucky that Duke won when Christian Laettner swished a shot now known as The Shot. Duke went to the Final Four and cut down the nets.

Sunday's game wasn't the greatest college-basketball game ever�Louisville nursed a double-digit lead for much of the second half�nor did the Louisville players elect to cut down the nets. They didn't abide by basketball tradition when they won the Big East tournament two weeks ago, either. Louisville's players say they're waiting for the national championship to break out their scissors. They might not have to wait much longer.