Louisville is young, but these Cards don't play like it

	Terrence Williams had 21 points, nine rebounds, four assists, two steals and two blocks as Louisville won its seventh straight. Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
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NEW YORK -- After nearly blowing a 17-point lead, riding a miraculous buzzer beater into overtime and barely missing one of his own that would have prevented a second, Louisville's Terrence Williams could finally taste victory. After West Virginia's Jamie Smalligan threw the ball away with 1:07 remaining in double overtime and the Cardinals up nine, Williams demonstratively pointed his finger the other way and led the charge back downcourt, temporarily ignoring the fact he still needed to inbound the ball.

It was typically entertaining stuff from Louisville's sophomore co-captain, who, in addition to putting on a show with his hoop skills -- scoring 21 points, grabbing nine rebounds and notching four assists, two steals and two blocks -- also spent much of Louisville's thrilling 82-71, double-OT victory over West Virginia here Thursday night smiling, clapping and generally hamming it up for both his teammates and the cameras.

"The saying is, do you play well when the lights are on?" said the Seattle native. "When are the lights brighter than Madison Square Garden, Big East tournament? I was going to have fun. I'm a fun guy to be around."

Thanks in large part to Williams, the Cardinals are a fun team to watch, or at least they have been during their ongoing seven-game winning streak that's seen them skyrocket from one-time NIT territory to a 12-4 Big East record, Top-15 national ranking and likely Top-5 seed in next week's NCAA tournament.

In the event you've never heard of Williams -- or perhaps were unaware Louisville had even reached such lofty status -- don't be embarrassed. Williams is not even a household name in his own conference, where he and junior center David Padgett were the Cardinals' lone All-Big East representatives, second team at that. (Mind you, there were 11 players on the league's bloated first team). In fact Williams, the Cards' leading scorer during the regular season at 12.2 points per game, did not even rank among the top 30 scorers in the conference.

Considering Louisville was an NIT team last season and only leapt into NCAA discussion within the past month, it may well be the nation's least-known legit Final Four contender. So let's slice through the mystery right here. The main thing you need to know about the Cards is that they're an extremely young team -- with three freshmen and two sophomores among their top seven scorers -- that doesn't at all play like it.

That much was obvious here Thursday night when the Cards took on John Beilein's notoriously pesky Mountaineers. As Louisville coach Rick Pitino observed afterward: "It's very tough to play freshmen against West Virginia because you have to stop the three, you have to stop their backdoors and you have to constantly change your defense."

If all those freshmen were fazed, however, they didn't show it; not in jumping to a 44-27 lead early in the first half, not after the Mountaineers proceeded to go on an 18-0 run to claim a 45-44 lead (Padgett responded with a layup on the other end) and not even after West Virginia's Darris Nichols sliced through the lane to hit what should have been a dagger, go-ahead lay-in to put his team up 58-56 with just 4.3 seconds left.