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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Back in the locker room, Frank Anselem-Ibe and Khani Rooths kept rewinding the final seconds of regulation on an iPhone. Were their eyes deceiving them?
"I knew it was cash," Anselem-Ibe said.
It was Chucky Hepburn's second-chance jumper from the left elbow as time expired to send Louisville basketball past Stanford, 75-73, and into the semifinal round of the ACC Tournament for the first time since joining the conference in 2014.
The highlight-reel play capped off the Cardinals' largest comeback of the season and earned Hepburn a FaceTime call with former U of L great Donovan Mitchell.
Where does this rank among the senior point guard's favorite moments of his collegiate career?
"Top two," Hepburn said, "and it's not No. 2."
With its first postseason win in three years, No. 2-seeded Louisville next plays at approximately 9:30 p.m. Friday against No. 3 Clemson at the Spectrum Center. Another victory and it will do battle against either No. 1 Duke or No. 5 North Carolina in Saturday's championship game.
Here's how Pat Kelsey's Cards pulled off the epic comeback:
Kelsey called a timeout with 14:32 to play in regulation and Louisville on the ropes.
The Cards trailed No. 7-seeded Stanford — the same team they beat by 20 points, 68-48, in last weekend's regular-season finale at the KFC Yum! Center — by 15, 52-37. From the outside looking in, hope was at a premium.
The Cardinal, as Kelsey told reporters afterward, was the aggressor for most of the night; ending U of L's streak of 20 consecutive games with a halftime lead. The ACC Coach of the Year signaled for the aforementioned stoppage of play with Kyle Smith's team on an 11-0 run and his squad shooting 3 for 9 from the field after the break.
What does one say in a moment like that? When you have a veteran team like Kelsey's, all it takes is roughly 30 seconds of what the 49-year-old Cincinnati native likes to call "aggressive counseling."
"I didn't have to say much after that," Kelsey said. His players took it from there — and ran with it.
"Coach always tells us, 'Stick together; play (our game) for 40 minutes," Noah Waterman said. "We weren't worried — even when we were down 15."
"Nobody argued," added Terrence Edwards Jr., who scored a game-high 25 points. "Everybody just stayed together and held each other accountable."
"We just all looked at each other and said that we weren't going to lose," Hepburn said.
What followed will be talked about for a long time in Louisville.
"How these guys responded to that adversity was amazing," Kelsey said. "I'm very, very, very proud of them."
First, Edwards stopped the bleeding with back-to-back layups. Then, with 12:16 remaining, he knocked down a jumper in the paint to spark a 16-3 run for the Cards — featuring baskets from Hepburn, James Scott and J'Vonne Hadley — to tie the game at 60 with 7:41 on the clock. U of L outscored Stanford 13-5 across the next 5:45 to take its largest lead of the night, 73-65, into the final 1:56.
"They just started driving us 1-on-1 a little in the middle of the floor," Smith said, "and we couldn't quite sustain it."
That was just the initial climb of this roller coaster of a finish. Despite playing its second game in as many days, the Cardinal still had one more run left in the tank — scoring eight unanswered to draw level with 32 seconds to spare. Its last bucket was a fast-break, and-1 layup off an errant pass from Hepburn; which prompted Kelsey to call another timeout and draw something up for the final possession.
Two Stanford defenders jumped Hepburn once, then twice, as he dribbled the ball past midcourt. Edwards said that took Louisville out of the set it was going to run.
He ended up with the ball in his hands at the top of the key and hoisted up a step-back, double-clutch 3-pointer over a leaping Oziyah Sellers with 5.1 seconds remaining. In the moment, these words from Scott were running through his head: "Put it on the rim; I got you."
"I thought his shot was going to go in; I'm going to be honest," Waterman said. "I believe (in) everybody on the team, so I thought it was a buck."
It wasn't. The ball hit the rim, then the backboard, and landed for a brief moment in the hands of Chisom Okpara with 2.9 seconds on the clock. Smith said he was trying to call a timeout while his team had possession, but Scott knocked the ball loose for Hepburn to recover at the left elbow with plenty of space to get a shot off before the buzzer.
"I was just at the perfect spot at the perfect time," Hepburn said.
"It was just like Pop-A-Shot," Kelsey added. "I don't even think he jumped."
Hepburn certainly wasn't thinking about that turnover he committed on the possession that preceded this one.
"If it's still on my mind," he said, "I probably don't even hit that shot."
Swish. Comeback complete. Pandemonium. Another storybook moment for the guy who planted a kiss on the Dunking Cardinal logo when he checked out for the final time last weekend at the Yum! Center. Per statistician Kelly Dickey, Louisville's first game-winning shot at the buzzer in the postseason since Scooter McCray's tip-in against Arkansas on March 24, 1983, to set up the "Dream Game" against archival Kentucky.
See you Friday night.
"Hopefully there's more luck in the genie bottle," Kelsey said.
Reach Louisville men's basketball reporter Brooks Holton at [email protected] and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville basketball: Chucky Hepburn caps ACC Tournament comeback
Continue reading...
"I knew it was cash," Anselem-Ibe said.
It was Chucky Hepburn's second-chance jumper from the left elbow as time expired to send Louisville basketball past Stanford, 75-73, and into the semifinal round of the ACC Tournament for the first time since joining the conference in 2014.
The highlight-reel play capped off the Cardinals' largest comeback of the season and earned Hepburn a FaceTime call with former U of L great Donovan Mitchell.
Where does this rank among the senior point guard's favorite moments of his collegiate career?
"Top two," Hepburn said, "and it's not No. 2."
With its first postseason win in three years, No. 2-seeded Louisville next plays at approximately 9:30 p.m. Friday against No. 3 Clemson at the Spectrum Center. Another victory and it will do battle against either No. 1 Duke or No. 5 North Carolina in Saturday's championship game.
Here's how Pat Kelsey's Cards pulled off the epic comeback:
'I didn't have to say much'
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Kelsey called a timeout with 14:32 to play in regulation and Louisville on the ropes.
The Cards trailed No. 7-seeded Stanford — the same team they beat by 20 points, 68-48, in last weekend's regular-season finale at the KFC Yum! Center — by 15, 52-37. From the outside looking in, hope was at a premium.
The Cardinal, as Kelsey told reporters afterward, was the aggressor for most of the night; ending U of L's streak of 20 consecutive games with a halftime lead. The ACC Coach of the Year signaled for the aforementioned stoppage of play with Kyle Smith's team on an 11-0 run and his squad shooting 3 for 9 from the field after the break.
What does one say in a moment like that? When you have a veteran team like Kelsey's, all it takes is roughly 30 seconds of what the 49-year-old Cincinnati native likes to call "aggressive counseling."
"I didn't have to say much after that," Kelsey said. His players took it from there — and ran with it.
"Coach always tells us, 'Stick together; play (our game) for 40 minutes," Noah Waterman said. "We weren't worried — even when we were down 15."
"Nobody argued," added Terrence Edwards Jr., who scored a game-high 25 points. "Everybody just stayed together and held each other accountable."
"We just all looked at each other and said that we weren't going to lose," Hepburn said.
What followed will be talked about for a long time in Louisville.
"How these guys responded to that adversity was amazing," Kelsey said. "I'm very, very, very proud of them."
First, Edwards stopped the bleeding with back-to-back layups. Then, with 12:16 remaining, he knocked down a jumper in the paint to spark a 16-3 run for the Cards — featuring baskets from Hepburn, James Scott and J'Vonne Hadley — to tie the game at 60 with 7:41 on the clock. U of L outscored Stanford 13-5 across the next 5:45 to take its largest lead of the night, 73-65, into the final 1:56.
"They just started driving us 1-on-1 a little in the middle of the floor," Smith said, "and we couldn't quite sustain it."
That was just the initial climb of this roller coaster of a finish. Despite playing its second game in as many days, the Cardinal still had one more run left in the tank — scoring eight unanswered to draw level with 32 seconds to spare. Its last bucket was a fast-break, and-1 layup off an errant pass from Hepburn; which prompted Kelsey to call another timeout and draw something up for the final possession.
'Pop-A-Shot'
You must be registered for see images
Two Stanford defenders jumped Hepburn once, then twice, as he dribbled the ball past midcourt. Edwards said that took Louisville out of the set it was going to run.
He ended up with the ball in his hands at the top of the key and hoisted up a step-back, double-clutch 3-pointer over a leaping Oziyah Sellers with 5.1 seconds remaining. In the moment, these words from Scott were running through his head: "Put it on the rim; I got you."
"I thought his shot was going to go in; I'm going to be honest," Waterman said. "I believe (in) everybody on the team, so I thought it was a buck."
It wasn't. The ball hit the rim, then the backboard, and landed for a brief moment in the hands of Chisom Okpara with 2.9 seconds on the clock. Smith said he was trying to call a timeout while his team had possession, but Scott knocked the ball loose for Hepburn to recover at the left elbow with plenty of space to get a shot off before the buzzer.
"I was just at the perfect spot at the perfect time," Hepburn said.
"It was just like Pop-A-Shot," Kelsey added. "I don't even think he jumped."
Hepburn certainly wasn't thinking about that turnover he committed on the possession that preceded this one.
"If it's still on my mind," he said, "I probably don't even hit that shot."
Swish. Comeback complete. Pandemonium. Another storybook moment for the guy who planted a kiss on the Dunking Cardinal logo when he checked out for the final time last weekend at the Yum! Center. Per statistician Kelly Dickey, Louisville's first game-winning shot at the buzzer in the postseason since Scooter McCray's tip-in against Arkansas on March 24, 1983, to set up the "Dream Game" against archival Kentucky.
See you Friday night.
"Hopefully there's more luck in the genie bottle," Kelsey said.
Reach Louisville men's basketball reporter Brooks Holton at [email protected] and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville basketball: Chucky Hepburn caps ACC Tournament comeback
Continue reading...
