The NCAA tournament ended Monday night in grand fashion, with the tournament's top seed, the Louisville Cardinals, topping the fourth-seeded Michigan Wolverines 82-76 in the national championship game, and making Louisville head coach Rick Pitino the first coach to ever lead two schools to a national championship.
Michigan entered the game with the nation's top player on its roster, point guard Trey Burke, and he did not disappoint. Burke carried the Wolverines, scoring 24 points on 7-of-11 shooting, including 3-of-5 from beyond the arc, despite missing the majority of the first half with foul trouble.
Michigan led by as many as 12 points with 3:33 remaining in the first half, but Louisville reserve Luke Hancock scored the Cardinals' next 14 points as the No. 1 seed stormed back. By the time the halftime buzzer sounded, Louisville had chopped the deficit from 12 points to just one.
Hancock finished the night with a team-high 22 points, on a perfect 5-of-5 from 3-point range. Following the game, Hancock was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four, and Chane Behanan racked up 15 points and 12 rebounds.
After the game, Pitino revealed that he had told his team he would get a tattoo if they won the title. Hancock, who figures to have a large voice in deciding what the tattoo will be, said, "I have a couple of ideas. He doesn't know what he's getting into." Cardinals point guard Peyton Siva, who scored 18 points and had six rebounds and five assists, called the prospect of Pitino getting a tattoo the team's biggest motivation.
Following the victory while Louisville was awarded its trophy, Pitino said, "I had the 13 toughest guys I've ever coached," Pitino said. "I'm just amazed they could accomplish everything we put out there."
The good feelings didn't stop there. Injured guard/forward Kevin Ware, whose leg was gruesomely broken in the Elite Eight, was on hand for the victory. Ware said, "These are my brothers," Ware said. "They got the job done. I'm so proud of them, so proud of them." Then, during the net-cutting ceremony, he patiently waited until the end, when the hoop was lowered and he cut his piece, and lifted it skyward in joy.
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