No. 1 Seed Belongs to Skyward Cardinals

NEW YORK – Terrence Williams curled his body into a crouch, half walking on his tiptoes, half stalking the prey. He was heading toward the Louisville bench, but on the way he made sure to jump-and-bump any Cardinals in sight, to yank on their jerseys and double slap their chests.

In a minute or so Williams would be holding aloft the Big East Conference championship trophy, carting it around Madison Square Garden arena as if it were a newborn, so precious, so beautiful. All across the basketball sphere top seeds kept dropping Saturday, biting the dust and then shrugging it off, as if it were fairly clear the larger prize hadn't yet materialized.

Not Louisville, and its coach who earned his rep on the unforgiving stoops of NYC.

And certainly not here, in front of a crowd that wouldn't hesitate to shred any team that dared not give it all.

The Cardinals beat Syracuse, 76-66, Saturday night to stock the tournament hardware next to their regular-season conference title. The win virtually assured the Cardinals a No. 1 seed when the NCAA selection committee dispenses the magic beans Sunday. The selectors, wise and omnipotent, will take into account one thing above all else: a team does not just win the Big East title as much as it survives it.

"History, we made history tonight," Williams, Louisville's irrepressible senior guard, was saying as he stood on the Garden floor holding the trophy, bedlam all around, describing how the Cardinals were not about to be another No. 1 seed to crash and burn. "The Big East is the toughest league and we won it. I've been in this building three years and I got sent home early three times. It's about time."

Syracuse's romp through the week was about as thrilling as they come, starting with the Orange's epic six-overtime win against Connecticut in the quarterfinals and carrying over to a OT victory over West Virginia in the semis. For days, the Orange staved off exhaustion and dehydration and cramps and the impossible, but the magic came undone early in the second half Saturday, against a team that blends tremendous depth with a full-court press that refuses to let up until its victims are bruised and bloodied.

Rick Pitino might be relatively new to the rough-and-tumble Big East, but he knows how New York ball is meant to be played and has done his best to create a synergy of street sense and collective code. "Give me two new guys," is how he runs his bench, fresh bodies rolling off his assembly line. The word "touches," Pitino said, "infuriates me more than anything in life," and his co-captains, Williams and Andre McGee, seem to have taken to their coach's philosophy.

The Cardinals pressed Syracuse from the opening tip, McGee wasting zero time in getting up close and personal with the Orange's indefatigable guard Jonny Flynn. Later Pitino would joke that McGee "puts more pressure on than any mother-in-law in the country." Flynn had another, equally colorful analogy.

"It's like being chased by eight pit bulls and (you) just got to keep running for your life," said Flynn, who still managed to score 11 points and dish six assists in 34 minutes despite having McGee glued to his side.

Flynn played 67 minutes Thursday night, 45 more Friday, and Saturday he was named the tournament's most valuable player. If Syracuse had pulled off another stunner, if it had held on to an eight-point halftime lead and sent the mostly-Orange crowd of 19,000 into another awestruck tizzy, Flynn probably could strapped the trophy to his back and run with it to the team's hotel across town.

Instead he sat at the podium, forlorn and dejected. Syracuse is still thick in the jumble of Big East teams sure to earn invites to the NCAA Tournament, but from the look on Flynn's face, you'd think he was being ordered to never again pick up a ball. That's how much the Big East title meant to him, a sentiment that appeared to ripple through both teams.

"I would trade the trophy in to win the Big East Tournament any day," Flynn said. "Lot of people are going to remember who won this tournament. They're not going to remember who won the outstanding trophy award."

There was 1:19 on the clock when coach Jim Boeheim pulled Flynn off the Garden court for the final time, Louisville up by nine and the championship trophy getting spit-shined. Flynn collapsed into his courtside seat, flopped his head into this hands and refused to glance up again. He couldn't, wouldn't, even with the action mere inches ahead. Sheer exhaustion hadn't sent him into a depressive spiral; losing was the beast that finally did him in.

The feeling will subside, Boeheim promised Flynn, as long as the games continue to stretch across March.


"The one last thing I said that I would share with you is that when this is all over, you know, five years from now, there's going to be two things people remember about this Syracuse basketball season. Two and only two," Boeheim said. "They're going to remember the Connecticut-Syracuse (game) here and going to remember what we do in the tournament. That's all they remember."

But will the strain of suiting up four straight nights in the Garden jeopardize Syracuse's push into March? Battle fatigue began to reflect off the players' sweat early in the second half, when Louisville's relentless press forced the Orange into an 0-for-8 stretch from the 3-point line. Williams, meanwhile, sunk back-to-back treys from the same spot on the wing within a minute span, both off McGee passes, building the Cardinals a 10-point lead.

Syracuse blew through its timeouts, exhaustion starting to show. The Orange rushed their passes, dribbled off feet and failed to anticipate angles off rebounds. McGee, a victim of cramps and poor conditioning throughout much of his high-school career, had 10 points and left his DNA all over Syracuse shooters. Williams got his touches in a way that makes all coaches wing, with seven steals and six assists.

Look around you, Pitino had told his players before the championship. You're in an NBA locker room, not some Garden broom closet. Relish it, honor it, said the man who once coached the Knicks. He took his players on a trip down memory lane, then reminded them about the immediate urgency: winning Louisville's first Big East crown since joining the league in 2006, and fulfilling the destiny of a top seed.

The Big East fingerprints will be all over the NCAA bracket, with Pitino's Cardinals the centerpiece. In the span of a week, in a city that eats its own, toughness was amplified, guts and perseverance laid bare. Boys became men on the Garden court, a theory supported by both Williams and McGee as they danced in front of the trophy and traded turns wearing the nets as necklaces.

"Listen to the words!" Williams shouted as the loud speakers blared the familiar strains of Frank Sinatra. "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere!" Williams yelled it again, in case anyone missed the message, then picked up the trophy and cradled it tight. It was a fine way to burst through March.