Louisville Reaches Final Four, Beats Florida In Elite Eight With Amazing Comeback

Louisville Reaches Final Four, Beats Florida In Elite Eight With Amazing Comeback

Russ Smith #2 of the Louisville Cardinals shoots over Erving Walker #11 of the Florida Gators of the first half in the 2012 West Regional Final in the NCAA basketball tournament.  The game was played in Phoenix, Arizona. 

Louisville players holding up trophy after winning the West Regional.

Louisville has had an incredible post-season tournament.  When you consider the array of injuries many of Louisville's players had experienced this season including their inconsistent offense, it's amazing they even made it to the NCAA Tournament much less to the Final Four.  Louisville began their season with a 12-0 record.  Even though they started out with that record, they were battling inconsistencies in their offense in such games as Ohio University, Western Kentucky University, and Vanderbilt, to name a few.  When they began their conference season on December 28, 2011, they lost their first game to Georgetown.  For the next two months, they lost eight more games.  Eight out of nine games were in the Big East Conference.  The only non-conference game Louisville lost was to Kentucky on New Year's eve.

Prior to Louisville's amazing post-season run, Louisville had lost the last two regular season conference games to South Florida and Syracuse.  Louisville lost to South Florida on Senior night at home and Louisville lost their season finale at Syracuse.  Following their last regular season game, Louisville went on an 8-0 run winning the Big East Conference Tournament for the first time since 2009.  They edged out Cincinnati in the conference tournament final.  Then in the West Regional Louisville defeated Davidson, New Mexico, Michigan State, and Florida.  Who would've thought Louisville would defeat #1 seed Michigan State and Florida Saturday.  Florida had a team with three players who were excellent shooting beyond the three-point arc.  Going into Saturday's game, it appeared it would be difficult for Louisville to defeat them.

For 32 minutes of the game, Florida outplayed Louisville.  They outshot Louisville.  They hit several three pointers in the first half.  After a technical foul was called against Rick Pitino and the Cardinals were down by 11, they made an amazing run.  As the game expired, Louisville won by four points 72-68. 

Louisville will play the winner of the South Regional on Saturday which is Kentucky-Baylor.  Click on the Huffington post to read the story about the game.