Louisville bows out of ACC Tournament with 78-73 loss to Miami

Five days after shooting the lights out and taking great care of the basketball in a 92-89 road win over Miami, Louisville failed to replicate either of those efforts in a 78-73 loss to the Hurricanes that ended U of L’s run in the ACC Tournament.

The Cardinals, who shot 12-for-24 from three in the first game against Miami, connected on just 6-of-24 from deep in round two. They also committed 13 turnovers which led directly to 21 Hurricane points.

That’s a recipe for disaster against one of the biggest and most physical teams in the country.

Still, Louisville found itself down by just a point with just over a minute to play. That’s when a disastrous sequence featuring a surrendered layup and an inexplicable inbounding turnover by Isaac McKneely essentially put the game on ice.

Ryan Conwell led the Cardinals with 22 points and nine rebounds, but he made just 1-of-10 shots from beyond the arc. J’Vonne Hadley added 19 points on 7-of-12 shooting, and Khani Rooths came off the bench to score 11 in just nine minutes of court time.

U of L once again struggled to contain Reneau on the other end of the floor. The First Team All-ACC selection finished with a game-high 24 points and three steals.

The story is pretty straightforward here: Against a team that has that much of a size and physicality advantage on you, you can’t have seven more turnovers than made three-pointers. Louisville battled like hell, and I’m actually fairly shocked that we played as well as we did inside the arc, but at some point, a team whose super power is supposed to be its outside shooting needs to make some outside shots to beat a worthy opponent.

The wait for Sunday, unfortunately, begins now.