Emotional U of L tries to process bitter loss

SYRAUCSE, N.Y. – The last of the media trickled out of the University of Louisville basketball team's locker room on Sunday here at the Carrier Dome and the room fell silent.

With his untucked white jersey hanging past his waist, junior forward Montrezl Harrell mustered the strength to stand up. He walked across the room to sophomore guard Terry Rozier and shook his hand. Then Anton Gill, sitting next to Rozier and covering his head with his hands, looked up and shook Harrell's hand.

One by one, Harrell worked his way around the room, shaking hands with his 12 teammates. There were few tears, if any, nothing to slice through the crushing quiet.

U of L came this far, to the East region final, to the brink of a third Final Four appearance in four seasons. A team that for so many games this season looked destined for a painful NCAA tournament experience had somehow found a way to the Elite 8, one game away from college basketball's headline act, only to lose what coach Rick Pitino called a 76-70 "heartbreaker" in overtime to Michigan State.

"Later on tonight I'm going to cry my eyes out that this is the way we ended our season," Harrell said. "It hasn't hit me yet. It just sucks."

Harrell and his Cardinals went ice cold in ice cold Syracuse. They had reversed the offensive struggles that plagued them all season in the first half of Sunday's game, shooting 53.1 percent from the field and taking an eight-point lead into the break. But the game's final 25 minutes saw the Louisville of old, the Louisville that couldn't shoot.

Rozier's three steals and fast-break layups and Wayne Blackshear's layup and 3-pointer provided the only field goals in the second half, and Rozier's overtime jumper was the only one of seven Louisville shots to fall in overtime.

All things considered, U of L had done well to even force overtime. The Cards had done well to even be in position to win when Mangok Mathiang stepped to the foul line, down one point with two shots and 4.9 seconds to go.

Michigan State made nine 3-pointers and shot 12 percent better from the foul line than its season average. The Spartans shut down Harrell, who had 12 first-half points but didn't make a field goal after that. They forced Rozier to settle for jump shots and challenged everything he did, holding him to 6-of-23 shooting. And the fourth scoring option, Quentin Snider, missed each of his final six shots.

But Louisville got to the foul line 23 times in the final 25 minutes. Blackshear, who scored 28 points despite a bloody nose and some halftime vomiting, was 12 of 12 on free throws. And Mathiang's one made foul shot in his big moment at least led to an extra five minutes.

"Sometimes it can be a cruel game," said Pitino, who added that he thought U of L was going to win when Mathiang's first free throw bounced in to tie the game at 65.

"The difference in the game: We got away from our ball movement a little bit and (tried) to go one on one. One team could really shoot it, and the other team struggled. That's the bottom line."

Pitino called the loss a "bitter pill to swallow," and his players, hushed in their answers, grappled with a loss they couldn't comprehend, or perhaps didn't want to comprehend just yet.

"This is something that's hard to process right now," Harrell said.

In that moment, he didn't. None of them did. They sat in silence, even if just for a few moments, wrestling with emotions they did not want to confront. Not today. Not here. Not so close to the Final Four, which seemed so far away at one point and became so real in two fast-moving weeks.

"We have to just live with it," Blackshear said.

Reach U of L beat writer Jeff Greer at (502) 582-4044 and follow him on Twitter (@jeffgreer_cj).