Sidelines

Report: Clark returning to Louisville

Jeff Goodman at Fox Sports is reporting that Louisville forward Earl Clark is returning  to U of L.

Just after Louisville's loss to North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament, Clark said he would put his name into the NBA draft.

If true, this is a huge boost for the Cards, who now figure to return a top-five team for next season.

Report: U of L's Clark to go pro

Jeff Goodman of FoxSports.com is reporting that Louisville's sophomore forward Earl Clark is going pro, according to sources close to the program.

At Charlotte last week, U of L coach Rick Pitino said he had told Clark not to go pro, and he felt confident that the 6-8 forward would be back for another year.

If Clark departs -- he has until June 16 to withdraw his name -- that would be a blow to a Louisville team that figured to be stacked next. The Cards are losing center David Padgett and forward Juan Palacios, but Pitino has an excellent class coming in, led by 6-9 forward Samardo Samuels.

Goodman writes that Pitino received an assessment from an NBA executive who rated Clark as a first-round pick. NBAdraft.net, however, does not rate Clark in it either of its mock first two rounds.

Pitino in Elite 8 games

Heading into tonight's Louisville-North Carolina East Regional final, U of L coach Rick Pitino is 5-2 in Elite Eight games.

Here are his seven previous:

• 1987 - Providence 88, Georgetown 73
  
  • The No. 6 seed in the Southeast, Pitino's Providence team whipped Alabama by 21 in the Sweet 16 game, then came back to beat John Thompson and the Hoyas at Freedom Hall to earn an unlikely trip to the Final Four.

• 1992 - Duke 104, Kentucky 103 in overtime
  
  • You know, the greatest game ever. Christian Laettner hits the shot to win it in Philadelphia. WHAS' Terry Meiners used to have a great radio routine with a Kentucky fan following Laettner around just to boo him wherever he went.

• 1993 - Kentucky 106, Florida State 81
  • The Cats overwhelmed Pat Kennedy's team in Charlotte to earn Pitino his second trip to the Final Four, his first at Kentucky. In New Orleans, the Cats lost in overtime to Chris Weber and Michigan.

• 1995 - North Carolina 74, Kentucky 71
  • The Cats had rolled through the firsts three games of the tournament, winning by an average of 30 points per game. Birmingham was full of Kentucky fans confident of another trip to the Final Four. Didn't happen. That Rodrick Rhodes missed all seven of his three-point attempts and went 2-for-10 for the game didn't help.

• 1996 - Kentucky 83, Wake Forest 63
  • Pitino did one of his best prep jobs here, shutting down Wake Forest center Tim Duncan with a variety of double-downs and traps. Wake, coached by Dave Odom, was never really in the game, played in Minneapolis. Was nearly a UK-U of L Midwest Regional final as Wake Forest beat Louisville by only one point, 60-59, in the semifinals.

• 1997 - Kentucky 72, Utah 59
  • Pitino beat up on UK's poor nemesis Rick Majerus, as the Cats whipped the Utes in the West Regional final at San Jose. Pitino said yesterday that the team he was most proud of was this '97 team because of everything it went through to reach the Final Four, and ultimately the title game, where UK lost in overtime to Arizona.

• 2005 - Louisville 93, West Virginia 85 in overtime
  • Cards trailed by as many as 20 points, including 13 at the half, then rallied to force overtime in Albuquerque. This was Pitino's return to the Elite 8, and his fifth regional title. The coach became the first to lead three different teams to the Final Four.

U of L-North Carolina press conference highlights

Top 10 highlights from today's press conferences previewing tomorrow's Louisville-North Carolina East Region final:

• Rick Pitino on having to play top-seed North Carolina in Charlotte: "We understand that we have to play a road game to get there (to the Final Four). We had to play a road game at Georgetown to win the Big East championship and came up short." Told that Roy Williams doesn't consider the game a home game, Pitino joked, "Roy should get on a plane for once and play the game at Freedom Hall."

• Carolina writers were hitting hard on the David Padgett angle. Padgett signed with Kansas to play for Roy Williams. But Williams departed for North Carolina before Padgett arrived on campus. After playing one year for the Jayhawks, he transferred to Louisville.

• Pitino on UK equipment manager Bill Keightley sitting in the U of L section for Thursday night's win over Tennessee: "The You learn about the game of life when you do come back, because you learn guys like Bill Keightley, he's never going to like Louisville, it's just not in his makeup. But he understands what friendships and people are all about. And I really appreciate that, because guys like Billy Keightley, they're your friends for life, and a lot of guys I thought were my friends back in those days haven't been my friends. So I really appreciate his friendship."

• Pitino: "The team I'm most proud of is '97, because we lost guys and came back and made it to the finals."

• Both Pitino and Williams said they were well beyond their tiff in 1989-90 when Williams' Kansas team obliterated Pitino's Kentucky team 150-95 and the two exchanged heated words on the sideline. In fact, Williams said that in '92 or '93, Pitino got him on the famed Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas.

• Williams on Louisville's defense: "I wish I was good enough to play a full-court pressing game and then drop into a zone defense."

• Williams on Pitino: "I think Rick is one of the great, great coaches in the game, not just the college game."

• Williams discounted the crowd advantage by saying that North Carolina lost two home games in the Dean Dome this year when it had 21,000-plus rooting for the Heels.

• Williams praised sixth-man Danny Green, who has had to deal with his father being arrested and charged with being a participant in a drug ring. The elder Green plead to a lesser charge and is now out on parole.

• Juan Palacios on Pitino: "Every time I ask Coach P how long he's been coaching, he tells me something different."

U of L-Tennessee post-game notes

Update: As an alert e-mailer pointed out, in today's column, I wrote that the 60 points was Tennessee's lowest total of season. Not true. Vols scored 47 in two-point win at LSU this year.

News and notes from Louisville's 79-60 win over Tennessee:

• Rick Pitino is now 8-0 in Sweet 16 games. Here are the eight:
  • 1987 - Providence beat Alabama 103-82 in Louisville.
  • 1992 - Kentucky beat UMass 87-77 in Philadelphia.
  • 1993 - Kentucky beat Wake Forest 103-69 in Charlotte.
  • 1995 - Kentucky beat Arizona State 97-73 in Birmingham.
  • 1996 - Kentucky beat Utah 101-70 in Minneapolis.
  • 1997 - Kentucky beat St. Joe 83-68 in San Jose.
  • 2005 - Louisville beat Washington 93-79 in Albuquerque.
  • 2008 - Louisville beat Tennessee 79-60 in Charlotte.

• Tennessee is 0-5 in Sweet 16 games.

• Tennessee averaged 0.780 points per possession, the fifth U of L opponent in the last six games to be held to less than a point per possession.

• Tennessee entered the game averaging 1.127 points per possession.

• Louisville averaged 1.050 points per possession last night.

• Oklahoma shot 31.9 percent in its 30-point loss to Louisville last Sunday. Tennessee shot 33.9 percent last night.

• The 33.9 wasn't a season-low for the Vols. UT shot 31.7 at LSU on Feb. 9.

• Louisville has blocked 19 shots in its last two games. It blocked 12 against Oklahoma, and seven more last night.

• The Cards have committed 44 turnovers in their last two games. They committed 20 last night.

• Louisville made 23 of 30 free throws for 76.7 percent. That's the best percentage at the line since 79.2 percent against Marquette on Feb. 4. Louisville made just 14 of 33 free throws in its first two NCAA games.

• Earl Clark scored 17 points and grabbed 12 rebounds for his ninth double-double of the season.

• The sophomore scored 13 points, grabbed six rebounds and blocked four shots in the second half.

• Clark is averaging 15.3 points per game in the NCAA Tournament.

• Point guard Andre McGee, who scored nine of his 13 points in the first half, played a season-high 32 minutes.

• After making just two of 19 three-pointers in his last three games before the NCAA Tournament, Jerry Smith is eight of 15 on threes.

• Louisville shot 66.7 percent from the floor in the second half, making 14 of 21 shots. Only one of those 14 baskets (a Clark jumper from the right baseline) was not a layup or a bucket around the basket. The Cards took just two three-pointers the second half. Missed both.

• Tennessee's Chris Lofton made just seven of 33 shots for the NCAA Tournament.

• Louisville's three NCAA wins have come by an average of 22.3 points.

• The Cards prepared for the game by watching a tape of Pitino's 1996 Kentucky team beating Syracuse in the national championship game.

• In case you were wondering, the technical foul assessed against Louisville was on freshman Preston Knowles for taunting.

• At one point, Knowles was guarding Lofton, a matchup of 10th Region stars. Lofton played at Mason County. Knowles played at Clark County.

Louisville-Tennessee day-after links

Links from Louisville's 79-60 win over Tennessee last night:

• Louisville had a bumpy road to the Elite Eight. [Jeff Goodman]
• Tennessee's season ends with loss to Louisville. [Tennessean]
• Vols still a step below the elite. [David Climer]
• Rocky toppled: Volunteers exposed. [Mark Bradley]
• BitterSweet ending for Vols. [Knoxville News-Sentinel]
• Louisville too much to overcome. [John Adams]
• Loss only a speed-bump for the Vols. [Mike Strange]
• Will the real Louisville, and Earl Clark, please stand up. [Mike DeCourcy]
• No one is playing at a higher level than Louisville. [Grant Wahl]
• U of L energy, defense sap Vols. [espn.com]
• Louisville's defense stifles Tennessee. [Dick Jerardi]

Pitino says Georgetown was lucky

Louisville played Georgetown to the wire before losing, 55-52, to finish second in the Big East to the Hoyas. It was a close win for Georgetown, which to Rick Pitino's way of thinking, has won too many close games.

According to D.C. Sports Bog, here's what Pitino said in the post-game press conference:

"They've been lucky. They won because they were better. And obviously good teams get luck, but on a goaltending call, on a push out-of-bounds, on a Hibbert three, God bless them, they're closer to heaven than we are. But tonight they were better. They made the plays down the stretch. It wasn't luck. Those other games were pretty lucky. You've got to just take your hat off. Put it this way, if they were going to the race track we'd all be up a lot of money right now."

Georgetown won six Big East by three or fewer points this year.

Louisville on a roll

Louisville's 71-51 mashing of Marquette last night at Freedom Hall was impressive. The Cardinals defense held Marquette to 30.4 percent shooting from the floor, and the visitors missed all 12 of their three-point attempts. That's the third straight opponent the Cards have held under 40 percent shooting. Marquette averaged 0.77 points per possession, the eighth straight opponent Louisville has held under a point per possession. (Donnie Jones' Marshall team was the last to top 1.00 at 1.104.)

Another impressive factor in last night's win was the play of center David Padgett. The senior center contributed a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds in his fifth game back since breaking his kneecap. Padgett made 8-of-9 shots in 21 minutes. His presence means Rick Pitino doesn't have to rely totally on the inconsistent Derrick Caracter. Or that Terrance Farley has to backup Caracter.

Winners of four straight, Louisville is 13-4 and gearing up towards a real roll. Thank the schedule. Trips to Seton Hall and South Florida are next on the agenda. U of L should win both. After that comes a home game with St. John's, a road trip to struggling Connecticut, then a home game with Rutgers. So Louisville could easily have a nine-game winning streak for their rematch with Marquette on Feb. 4.

Audio: UK-U of L post-game

From the post-game press conferences after Louisville's 89-75 win over Kentucky:

• Louisville coach Rick Pitino: Download rick_pitino_2008_01_05.wav

• UK coach Billy Gillispie: Download billy_gillispie_2008_01_05.wav

• UK's Joe Crawford: Download joe_crawford_2008_01_05.wav

• UK's Derrick Jasper: Download derrick_jasper_2008_01_05.wav

Liveblog: UK-U of L second half

From press row at Rupp Arena:

• My apologies. Problems with Rupp Arena's wireless, or my computer's ability to stay connected to the wireless, brought live-blogging to a halt in the second half. My apologies. Check the post-game post for more info on the game. Thanks.

• Louisville extends lead to 64-43 with 7:29 left.
  • Cards have outscored Kentucky 34-12 this half.
  • Palacios has been a big key. He had scored 12 points on the year before this game. He has 15 for Louisville at this point.
  • Williams and Smith each have 10 for Louisville.
  • Williams was called for a technical after coming to the defense of David Padgett, when the Cardinal center took a hard fall.
  • Kentucky has been all but overwhelmed this half.

• Louisville up 52-39 at 11:09 mark.
  • Cards had its first 13-point lead at 48-35.
  • Louisville has outscored UK 22-8 this half.
  • Palacios has 10 points for Louisville.
  • Kentucky has only two field goals this half.

• Louisville leads 41-35 at 15:29 mark.
  • Cats calmed down a bit after Gillispie asked for a timeout at end of 9-0 Louisville run.
  • Williams hit a three for Louisville, then quickly missed his next two.
  • Louisville has made four of seven shots this half. UK is 1-for-3.
  • UK linebacker Wesley Woodyard was the "Y" in the Kentucky spell-out cheer.

• Louisville turns up press, scores nine straight for 39-31 lead with 17:54 left.
  • Halftime adjustment for Louisville was full-court, rabid, forcing UK into turnovers which have led to easy Cardinal buckets.
  • Louisville has three field goals and 3-for-3 on free throws already this half.
  • UK has turned it over three of its first four possessions this half.
  • Crawford (4-of-5) and Bradley (3-of-3) were a combined 7-of-8 in the first half.
  • UK opened with its five starters in the second half.