16 Sweet 16's?
BIRMINGHAM - Rick Pitino and the Louisville Cardinals are trying to improve their impressive NCAA Tournament resume and advance to the Sweet 16 Sunday afternoon.
Standing in their way: the 6-seed Oklahoma Sooners.
Pitino is 33-11 in the Tournament after the first round win over Boise State. Pitino trails only Mike Krzyzewski and Billy Donovan is tournament winning percentage among active coaches.
His Cardinals are trying to advance to its 16th Sweet 16, which is fifth in the nation since the Tournament expanded to 32 teams in 1975.
They trail only North Carolina (21), Kentucky (20), Duke (19) and UCLA (17).
The Cardinals used a balanced 3-point attack to dispose of the Broncos Friday as seven different players connected from deep.
Oklahoma, who is trying to advance to its 9th Sweet 16 since 1975, got a career performance from David Godbold to take care of St. Joseph's. Godbold scored 25 points and shut down the Hawks' biggest threat of Pat Calathes to catapult the Sooners to the second round.
It will be a tougher assignment for Godbold tonight, since the Cardinals are so balanced at the guard position. However, it should be interesting to see if super-frosh Blake Griffin can take control of the game down low against David Padgett and the Louisville bigs.
It should be another exciting second round game from two pretty storied programs.
