Luke Hancock scored 22 points, and Rick Pitino became the first coach to win national titles at two schools when Louisville rallied from another 12-point deficit to beat Michigan 82-76 in the NCAA championship game Monday night.
The players intend to hold Pitino to a promise he made: If they won a national title, he’d get a tattoo.
The Cardinals (35-5) lived up to their billing as the top overall seed in the tournament.
Freshman Spike Albrecht made four straight from beyond the arc, too, blowing by his career high before the break with 17 points. Coming in, Albrecht was averaging 1.8 points a game and had not scored more than seven all season.
The Cardinals wanted to win a national title for someone else—injured guard Kevin Ware, who watched again from his seat at the end of the Louisville bench, his injured right leg propped up on a chair.
Ware’s gruesome injury during the regional final will forever be linked to this tournament. He landed awkwardly, snapped his leg and was left writhing on the floor with the bone sticking through the skin. On this night, he hobbled gingerly onto the court with the aid of crutches, basking in a sea of confetti and streamers.
Louisville again came out wearing Ware’s No. 5 on the back of their warmup jerseys; the front said, “Ri5e to the Occasion.” When the title belonged to the Cardinals, Ware put on a championship cap and got a big hug from Pitino. Then, they lowered the basket so the injured player could cut a strand out of the net.
Siva added 18 points for the Cardinals, who closed the season on a 16-game winning streak, and Chane Behanan chipped in with 15 points and 12 rebounds as Louisville slowly but surely closed out the Wolverines (31-8).
Michigan was in the title game for the first time since the Fab Five lost the second of two straight championship games in 1993. Players from that team, including Chris Webber, cheered on the latest group of young stars.
But, like the Fab Five, national player of the year Trey Burke and a squad with three freshman starters came up short in the last game of the season.
Burke led the Wolverines with 24 points.
Information from The Associated Press contributed to this report.
