Pitino’s Coup d’Ville Is a Late-Breaking Story

It’s February, and time to pick the impostors out of the top 10.

Louisville’s stubborn Cardinals don’t appear to be going anywhere

“You can watch them on TV and on tape, but until you see them in person, you don’t know what you are up against,” Indiana Coach Mike Davis said.

You can watch the eighth-ranked Cardinals for a half, and still not know.

No. 19 Indiana outshot, outrebounded and outscored Louisville by 16 at one point during the first half Saturday. The Hoosiers still led by eight at halftime.

Then John Belushi appeared on the Freedom Hall scoreboard video screen in a clip from “Animal House” that Coach Rick Pitino had introduced in his video pep talk to the crowd before the game.

“Over? Did you say over?” Belushi bellowed. “Nothing is over until we decide it is.”

When it was over, Louisville had blown out Indiana, 95-76, scoring the game’s final 17 points and holding the remnants of a Hoosier team that reached the NCAA final last season without a field goal for the final 7:55.

They did it with defense and conditioning and a relentless press that swarmed Indiana freshman star Bracey Wright three-on-one at one point, an attack that ended with a dunk by Louisville freshman Francisco Garcia.

“We got our butt kicked in the first half,” Pitino said. “[But] we flat-out got after it defensively in the second half.

“I thank John Belushi for the assist.”

Indiana is hardly the first team to fall victim to the second-half surge of the Cardinals, 16-1 in their second season under Pitino, and only two years removed from a 12-19 debacle in Hall of Fame coach Denny Crum’s final season.

The only deficit Louisville hasn’t overcome all season was against Purdue, which beat the Cardinals by two in November.

Back in December, Louisville fell behind hated Kentucky by 11 during the first half, then beat Pitino’s old team by 18.

With their rivals from the basketball-mad states of Kentucky and Indiana dismissed, the Cardinal players say their pride has returned.

“Aw, man, it’s a great feeling,” guard Reece Gaines said. “We can cross the bridge now or go to Lexington again after these games.”

The list of second-half comebacks goes on.

The Cardinals trailed Ohio State by 18 in the first half last month, then won in overtime. Saint Louis led by 13 and lost. Tennessee led by 12 and fell.

Now Freedom Hall -- the old barn where UCLA won its 1967 and ’69 NCAA titles -- rings with the shouts of a record crowd of 20,086.

The star Saturday wasn’t Gaines, the high-scoring senior guard.

It was the freshman Garcia, who came off the bench to lead all scorers with 23 points as Louisville’s bench outscored Indiana’s, 44-17.

It was all Indiana in the first half. Louisville shot only 29% while Indiana shot almost 54%, going inside to Jeff Newton and George Leach at will while the Cardinals obsessed on Indiana’s three-point shooters.

On the other end, Gaines was misfiring, going one for five from three-point range, while the Cardinals made only one of 12 from beyond the line.

Then Garcia, a wiry 6-foot-7, 175-pound forward, came in and scored 17 in the second half, finishing with three blocked shots and two steals as well.

A three-pointer by Garcia just before the 12-minute mark gave Louisville its first lead of the second half, and his three-point play with less than eight minutes left tied the score again, setting the stage for the final surge.

Taquan Dean, a freshman who starts at guard, made a three-pointer for Louisville’s first five-point lead with 3:23 left. Garcia made it eight with another three before Dean’s steal and three-pointer made it 11.

Both of those players committed to Louisville before they ever set foot on campus, and Garcia said he didn’t need to meet Pitino to know he wanted to play for him.

“I’ve been watching Coach Pitino’s teams for a long time ... Derek Anderson, Ron Mercer,” Garcia said. “I liked his style of play. He liked my style of play too. He said my defense was not too good, but he could work with that.”

It’s working, even if the Cardinals are living dangerously.

“We’ve been down a whole lot at halftime this year,” said Ellis Myles, a junior forward from Compton Centennial High who leads the team in rebounding.

“A team like that, you don’t want to be down eight at halftime. We’re not going to be able to come back all the time.”

The comeback isn’t complete, with the national championships of 1980 and ’86 still receding. But with Pitino on the bench and Louisville in the top 10 again, Cardinal fans are convinced it’s on its way.

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Cardinals Rule

*--* Kentucky (Southeastern) 10 16-3, 6-0 With its come-from-behind victory over Indiana and Oklahoma State’s loss to Texas, Louisville has the longest current winning streak in Division I. The schools with the longest current winning streaks, with their overall and conference records: Team (Conference) Streak Overall, Conf Louisville (Conference USA) 15 16-1, 6-0 Florida (Southeastern) 14 18-2, 7-0 Stephen F. Austin (Southland) 13 14-3, 10-0 Manhattan (Metro Atlantic Ath.) 12 16-3, 9-1

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