SPORTS

Sullivan | Cards can count on Quentin

Tim Sullivan
@TimSullivan714


SEATTLE – Quentin Snider walked toward the press conference with a hitch in his step and an icepack on his knee.

The Louisville freshman took one for the team Friday afternoon in his NCAA tournament debut, racing to cover a critical loose ball just ahead and soon beneath a pair of UC Irvine opponents.

Snider acquired a "knot" in his knee in the process, but then pushed through the pain to sink the free throws that supplied U of L a 57-55 survive-and-advance victory over the upstart Anteaters. And though Snider's postgame celebration was characteristically subdued, his sense of accomplishment was surpassingly sweet.

"I knew my team needed me to make free throws," he said. "I had to knock them down."

That statement was pretty typical of tournament time, but the sense of urgency behind it was acute. For two years, ever since Louisville Ballard's one-point loss to Madison Central in the KHSAA Championship game, Snider has found motivation in the memory of missed free throws, one of them with 26.9 seconds to go and Ballard looking for a knockout blow.

"That's what helped me at the end (Friday)," he said. "When we lost, I went straight to the gym. That really hurt me. I think I missed four free throws."

The box score from that game shows Snider was actually 7 of 9 from the line, the Bruins' surest shot on a day his team missed 10 of its 20 free throws. But even now, Quentin Snider is no sure thing from the free-throw line. He had made only 16 of 27 from the line prior to Friday's game — a .593 percentage unbecoming of a point guard — though that small sample receded in significance as he drilled the pair that propelled Louisville to Sunday's tournament game against Northern Iowa.

So, too, did the February dismissal of Chris Jones lose some significance Friday. Less than a month since Jones' departure was widely deemed a fatal blow to U of L's prospects, Quentin Snider repaid Rick Pitino's confidence and trust with a season-high 16 points on the biggest stage of his brief career.

The afternoon was a validation of the work Snider has done since Ballard's excruciating loss to Madison Central, and of the nurturing Pitino and his sons began providing to Snider when he showed up at a camp more than a decade ago.

"One of my children coached him at seven (years old)," Pitino said. "Another child coached him at eight. Another child coached him at nine. .... How old were you the first time?"

"Seven," Snider replied.

"Seven years old at camp and he won the MVP every single time at camp," Pitino continued. "All my children coached him. Every time he does something well, I get texts from them that say, 'It was my coaching at that time that did it.'

"But he doesn't have any fear. He was thrown into a very difficult situation. But he makes our guys better, he gets into the lane and he doesn't have any fear at all."

You didn't have to look too carefully for confirmation of that on Friday. With Louisville clinging to a one-point lead and less than six minutes to play, Snider pulled up in the lane and launched a successful short-range jumper over the outstretched arm of UC Irvine's 7-foot-6 center, Mamadou Ndiaye.

Snider repeatedly trespassed into Ndiaye's territory and without trepidation, as did U of L senior Wayne Blackshear (19 points, 7 rebounds). They dared the opposing giant to challenge shots and incur fouls, using their quickness to bring Ndiaye down to a more manageable size.

"It was a little tricky," Blackshear acknowledged. "We know that, yeah, he's the tallest player in the college basketball game. But our thing was just to get reversals and just try to attack. We know that his reaction was kind of slow, so Terry (Rozier) drove one time and obviously I drove to the basket a couple times. But we just had to attack those guys and close out, and that's what we did."

There's a lesson in that, and in dealing with disappointment by redoubling your efforts. Before he took his seat at the press conference podium, Quentin Snider was asked what he had learned in his first month as a Louisville starter that he had not already known.

"Play hard every possession," was what he said.

And did.

Tim Sullivan can be reached at (502) 582-4650, tsullivan@courier-journal.com and @TimSullivan714 on Twitter.