CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Chucky Hepburn beat the buzzer Thursday night at the Spectrum Center to send Louisville basketball to the ACC Tournament‘s semifinal round for the first time since joining the conference in 2014.
Hepburn’s second-chance jumper from just past the free-throw line as time expired in regulation capped off the largest comeback of the campaign for Pat Kelsey‘s No. 2-seeded Cardinals, who walked away with a 75-73 win over No. 7 Stanford.
It was U of L’s first postseason victory since beating Georgia Tech in the ACC Tournament on March 8, 2022, in Greensboro, North Carolina.
With the win, Louisville will play either No. 3 Clemson or No. 6 SMU at approximately 9:30 p.m. Friday for a spot in Saturday’s championship game.
On the other side of the bracket: No. 1 Duke and No. 5 North Carolina, which will face off at 7 p.m. Friday.
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Here are three takeaways from the thriller in Charlotte:
Don’t count the Cards out
With 14:36 to play in regulation, Stanford took its largest lead of the night, 52-37.
Nail in the coffin? Not in the slightest.
Louisville ripped off a 23-8 run in the span of 6 minutes, 55 seconds to tie the game at 60 with 7:23 on the clock. Hepburn, Terrence Edwards Jr. and James Scott combined for 21 points during the swing.
Edwards scored a game-high 25 points on 9-for-14 shooting — the fifth-year Atlanta native’s sixth outing of 20 or more points since Feb. 1. Hepburn followed with 20 points on a 6-for-16 clip.
The duo combined for 28 of the Cards’ 45 second-half points.
A ‘rock fight’ out of the gate
One of Kelsey’s final messages to his players before tipoff was, “Rock fight, rock fight, rock fight.”
He got his wish. Louisville and Stanford combined to make five of their first 20 field-goal attempts.
The Cards jumped to a 6-0 lead thanks to two 3-pointers from Noah Waterman, then fell into a scoring drought of nearly six minutes, featuring six turnovers, while Stanford pulled ahead with a 9-0 run.
Both teams finished the half shooting above 45% from the field and 38% from 3, but the Cardinal held a 33-30 advantage at the intermission by making eight of its final 10 shots and scoring nine points off eight U of L turnovers.
This was the first time Louisville trailed an ACC opponent at the break all season.
Reyne Smith still ‘day to day’ with high-ankle sprain
Reyne Smith missed his second consecutive game due to a right ankle injury he suffered early in the first half of a March 5 win over California at the KFC Yum! Center.
The senior guard, who’s among the country’s most prolific marksmen, wasn’t wearing the boot that he sported during the regular-season finale. But his status for Friday’s semifinal game remains uncertain.
“It’s literally day to day,” Kelsey said. “He obviously wants to be out there so bad; he’s as tough of a kid as I’ve ever coached. The type of ankle sprain that he has — kind of a high-ankle sprain — they’re no fun. He’s getting treatment, basically, around the clock; and then each day we see how he progresses.”
Waterman stepped up big time in Smith’s absence. The sixth-year forward had his best scoring performance since late December, netting 12 points and grabbing a game-high nine rebounds to boot.
Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at [email protected] and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
