The No. 8 Louisville Cardinals came into Monday’s game with the Syracuse Orange averaging roughly 40 rebounds per game.
Against SU on Monday, the Cardinals got 46, including 15 on the offensive glass.
It wasn’t as bad as Saturday’s performance against Pittsburgh, but it felt the same.
Louisville won the battle of the boards, 46-38, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. UL dominated the offensive glass which kept the eighth-ranked team in the country in the game or ahead for the majority of regulation.
The deficit on the boards, just eight, felt like twenty-eight.
Taurean Thompson, who played 18 minutes, scored all 11 of his points in the second half. But in those 18 minutes of action, he grabbed just one rebound.
A 6-foot-10 power forward grabbing one rebound in an ACC game? It simply can’t happen.
Tyler Roberson had eight rebounds, but only three on the offensive glass. Louisville continued to limit Syracuse’s second chance opportunities, which killed momemtum all evening.
On a positive note, Andrew White had eight rebounds, which tied Roberson’s game-high. The only issue with White’s game was he didn’t come to play offensively. He went 2-for-14 from 3-point range, and 7-of-24 overall.
The Cardinals rank second in the ACC in total rebounds per game, just over four per game less than North Carolina. UL is also second in offensive boards per game with 13.5 per game. The overtime period on Monday helped surpass that number.
Syracuse, on the other hand, ranks No. 11 in the league in total rebounding.
U of L had 18 second-chance points to SU’s nine.
"These guys fight," Jim Boeheim said after the game. "It was an unbelievable effort. A Herculean effort."
The Orange, now 16-11 (8-6), travel to Georgia Tech on Sunday for a 6:30 p.m. matchup with the Yellow Jackets.