INDIANAPOLIS — He was, in a word, Russdiculous.
They play with their hair on fire, all these Louisville Cardinals do, from start to finish. It sometimes seems as if there are six of them, six Cardinals, playing this time against five Oregon Ducks. They play as if they were trying to make the damn team.
Picture, if you will, five Charlie Hustles on the court at all times. Five piranhas at feeding time. Five Lawrence Taylors getting after the quarterback. Five whippets charging for the basket.
Rick Pitino took Providence College to a Final Four once with manic offense. Now, after a 77-69 victory over Oregon in the Sweet 16 Friday night, he stands 40 minutes from back-to-back Final Fours with relentless defense, and a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
One of those parts, this Russdiculous kid out of Brooklyn and Archbishop Molloy High, a fearless, fun-loving kid named Russ Smith, who beat Oregon defenders off the dribble at will, played under control and showed up as the best player on the court.
Or maybe we should call him Russsickulous.
“I’m terribly sick,” Smith said. “I just kept coughing. But we go through scouting a lot, and I talk to Coach a lot about where can I find any gaps or where can I look good on the court, what could I do to help the team win.
“And Coach always gives me the answers, and I just try to go out there and just find any gaps and any spaces I can to create shots for myself and my teammates.”
A kid who effortlessly scored 31 points and imposed his will and swag on the night.
Who made Kentucky Fried duck of Oregon.
One coach, screaming himself hoarse, standing the whole time, except during timeouts, on his way to the Georgia Dome, and the Hall of Fame.
If Pitino is the calm, his No. 1-seeded Cardinals are the storm. They come at you in waves, an army of Pitino cult followers that more often than not saps you of your will and leaves you fatigued and worn to a frazzle. It is a deep team, a selfless team, a together team, and Pitino loves coaching it. And this time, a John Calipari Kentucky machine won’t be standing in the way.
This time, he has a Russdiculous talent playing at the top of his game.
Oregon had all that against it, all that and a sea of red everywhere the Ducks looked cheering loud enough it might have made the Cardinals think they were back home inside the KFC Yum! Center.
The Ducks made the Cardinals sweat anyway.
They wouldn’t turn the ball over at the alarming rate many expected. They wouldn’t quit when they appeared ready to go.
It was 24-8 before the Ducks even knew what hit them with nine minutes gone. A shot clock violation only 2:24 into the game was the first hint they were in big trouble. Pitino had made it sound as if he dreaded playing this so-called greatest 12 seed of all time. Except the Ducks appeared as passive and slow on defense at the start that you could have mistaken them for a 16 seed.
Dominic Artis, a freshman guard out of San Francisco, stopped the bleeding. Artis drilled a pair of 3s and a running bank shot and the Ducks were within 29-21. It was as close as they could come in a half that ended 45-31. Smith had 16 points by then, on only 10 shots.
Pitino substituted so freely you wondered whether some of his players had downed too much prune juice at the team meal. Peyton Siva, his senior quarterback, sat for 15 minutes in the first half. So Kevin Ware (4-for-4 shooting) — out of the Bronx, by the way — played 15 minutes and displayed nothing but poise under pressure.
The lead ballooned to 16, before the Ducks stormed back. And when they closed to within eight, well, that got Louisville’s attention.
It looked over.
It wasn’t over.
Because here came the Ducks again. Damyean Dotson hit a J and all of a sudden it was Louisville 70, Oregon 64. Ware hit a running bank on the right side. Wayne Blackshear stole the ball from Artis. Smith penetrated and his bounce pass to Chane Behanan became a dunk. Then Smith sank a pair of free throws.
Then it was over.