Mathiang an improbable hero for Cards

Mangok made it?!

That collective thought swept through the KFC Yum! Center Saturday night as Louisville's oft-offensively challenged Mangok Mathiang improbably swished the biggest shot of the Louisville basketball team's season, lifting the Cardinals past No. 2 Virginia 59-57.

U of L coach Rick Pitino said Mathiang, who hadn't taken a shot in the game and was only 1 of 16 since the end of January, was the "64th option" on the Cardinals' possession as they trailed the Cavaliers 57-56 with nine seconds to go.

But after guard Terry Rozier was bottled up on the left wing and couldn't shoot or find Montrezl Harrell, he passed to the middle to a wide-open Mathiang, who had no hesitation and hit nothing but net on a 16-foot jump shot with 2.7 seconds remaining.

The crowd erupted, he ran and hugged Harrell at halfcourt, and some cheers of "Man-gok!, Man-gok!" could be heard.

UVA then threw away the inbound pass, preserving the Cards' thrilling victory.

Did Mathiang think his shot was going in?

"I was not thinking about the miss at all," Mathiang said, crediting extra late-night shooting sessions for giving him confidence. "…. There are always surprises in every single game and on our basketball team. We're always ready for someone to step up."

He added: "When it came off my hand and my fingers, it felt right."

GAME REWIND |U of L outlasts Virginia

Mathiang said he hasn't hit a game-winner since he was teenager back in his home country of Australia. He said, of course, like everyone who plays basketball, he'd practiced game-winners, counting down 3-2-1, then visualizing the crowd going wild.

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Now it's a reality.

"This is a moment I will never forget," he said. "To play for such a great school and play against such a great school, and to actually hit a game-winner in the last home game of the regular season, it feels great. It's something I'm going to take with me for the rest of my life."

Virginia coach Tony Bennett praised Mathiang for rising to the moment. He said he was mostly pleased with how his team defended the play, shutting off Rozier and denying Harrell, who'd had a beastly game with 20 points and 12 rebounds.

Instead, the ball got to the guy the Cavaliers surely wanted to take such an important late-game shot.

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"I don't want to say you expect him to not make it, but I was OK with how we defended that possession," Bennett said. "… Good for him. He stepped up and hit a good shot, and I don't think that's his forte, but he did it in a big setting."

While Mathiang's shot surprised just about everyone who has watched Louisville play this season, Pitino said it was the product of hard work.

He challenged Mathiang, who has made just 25 shots in 31 games this season, to develop a capable midrange jumper that would keep defenses honest.

"I said to him, 'If you can't a 14-foot shot, son, you can't play college basketball at the University of Louisville,'" Pitino said. "So he went in and with a couple managers he worked the last two months. He hasn't taken that shot (in a game), but it's fitting ... after putting in about two months and about 1,000 shots. And that shot was good from the moment it left his hands."