LOUISVILLE, Ky. — There were only so many ways for Louisville’s Kyle Kuric to answer the same question.

As reporters mobbed the Cardinals’ sophomore reserve guard outside his locker, he entertained each inquiry — though all seemed to belabor the same point on everybody’s mind.

How did that just happen?

‘It’s hard to grasp it,’ Kuric said. ‘Anytime something like this happens, I think it’s by surprise.’

Before Saturday’s game, Kuric wasn’t on anyone’s radar. Scoring a little more than three points per game, it was safe to consider him an afterthought on head coach Rick Pitino’s bench.

But as the crowd at Freedom Hall spilled over the press tables and guard rails to rush the court following the 78-68 upset victory over top-ranked Syracuse, it was Kuric they were looking for. Coming off the bench in the second half, he torched a jumbled Orange defense for 22 points with a mix of piercing 3-pointers and a series of alley-oop finishes that sent the sold-out crowd into a frenzy.

‘I told Kyle, ‘Kyle, I want you to go in there and dominate this game,” Louisville head coach Rick Pitino joked following the game. ‘And he said, ‘OK coach, I’ve always listened to you, so I’ll go out and dominate.’ It’s remarkable. I just love the players when they listen. But he put on a great performance that he’ll remember for the rest of his life.’

The technical explanation for what happened was an overload formation Pitino threw into Syracuse’s zone defense. Kuric said that he knew the Orange’s wing defenders played high and that packing enough players on one side would eventually free up the corner — where Kuric buried a majority of his four 3-pointers.

But in reality, Kuric’s effect reached far beyond a spot-shooting clinic. On seemingly every possession he would lose himself within SU’s 2-3 zone and re-emerge hanging on the rim while the dejected Orange scrambled to get back on offense.

With the Cardinals down three, Louisville guard Peyton Siva raced around Rick Jackson to grab a rebound, then whipped it upcourt to Kuric, who was sprinting toward the basket. He scored his first two points capping off the drive with a two-handed jam.

Two possessions later, he picked Andy Rautins and raced toward the basket for another score, forcing Syracuse — now down three — to call a timeout while the euphoric crowd inside the arena rose to its feet.

‘We knew he was a good player,’ SU head coach Jim Boeheim said. ‘He just hasn’t played that much. He got going, he got that dunk and then he got a little confidence going. He made a couple good shots and he had a couple layups in transition. That always helps you get going.’

The last time the Orange saw Kuric, he played just three minutes and went 0-for-1 from the field. But on Saturday, he continued to make the second half miserable for an Orange team looking for any way back into the game.

There was his first 3-pointer with 11:40 left to play. Peyton Siva swung it to his left side where Kuric was wide open, knocking down the easy bucket and putting the Cardinals up five.

Then, three minutes later, Kuric did it again — on two consecutive possessions. Two straight trips down the court ended with Kuric knocking down shots from the corner.

‘He did a great job,’ sophomore guard Scoop Jardine said. ‘He definitely was the key, he got them going. When a guy like that comes off the bench and does things the way he did, it’s hard.’

In the Syracuse locker room following the game, the same questions being asked of Kuric were being asked of the Orange defense. There was a hundred different ways to phrase it, but when a reserve guard comes off the bench and scores more points in one game than he had all season, everyone just wants to know …

How did that just happen?

‘There was no scouting report on him at all,’ junior forward Wes Johnson said. ‘We knew they were a good team, but he wasn’t mentioned at all in the scouting report.’

Perhaps it was as simple as Pitino’s offense working like it was supposed to. But maybe, like Kuric said, it was something more difficult to explain.

‘I really can’t tell you, I don’t have an answer,’ Kuric said. ‘Just kind of how it happened.’

ctorr@syr.edu

Published on March 7, 2010 at 12:00 pm