Louisville basketball’s top 5 March performances of the last decade
By Taron Long
March 6th, 2010: Kyle Kuric Comes off the Bench to Help Cards Beat No. 1 Syracuse in Freedom Hall Finale
Barring a miraculous run in the 2010 Big East Tournament, Rick Pitino and the Cards were on the brink of missing the NCAA Tournament after 3 consecutive appearances. And with top-ranked Syracuse in town, a sour ending in the final game of the historic Freedom Hall seemed evident. Taking it a step further, the Cards beat the Orange a few weeks prior in the Carrier Dome, and Syracuse wouldn’t want to avenge that loss any other way than in the last game of the storied arena.
Well with Jerry Smith leaving the game with a thumb injury in the first half, Rick Pitino turned to reserve Kyle Kuric, a walk-on who more closely resembled a high school science teacher than a Division-1 basketball player.
The rarely-used Evansville product, who played just three minutes in the first meeting in Syracuse, came off the bench and went berserk, erupting for all of his 22 points in the 2nd half, sending the Cardinal faithful into pure jubilation in the process. What was an arm-wrestle of a game for the first 30 minutes turned into an Orange ass-whooping, highlighted by a barrage of three-pointers and alley-oop dunks that sent out the historic building out in the style.
The final game in Freedom Hall, which saw a desperate Cardinal team take down the no.1 team in the country behind a walk-on’s 22 points, is stuff you only see in a Clint Eastwood film. You couldn’t have written a better script (The ensuing two games, however, is its own sad, heartbreaking story).
Still, Kuric’s out-of-this-world performance on that memorable Saturday tops the list of March performances in the last decade.