Eight Is Great for Cardinals

Louisville 56, Baylor 39

RALEIGH, N.C., March 28 -- Angel McCoughtry and Candyce Bingham remembered the crushing feeling they had in the locker room last year after Louisville blew a lead and lost in the NCAA tournament.

This time, the Cardinals gathered at midcourt to celebrate with a few screams of joy after the horn.

McCoughtry had 22 points and 12 rebounds while Bingham sparked the decisive second-half run to help the Cardinals beat Baylor, 56-39, on Saturday, sending them to the first region championship game in school history.

Bingham had 15 points and 15 rebounds for the Cardinals (32-4), the No. 3 seed in the East Region. That included a pair of critical three-pointers during Louisville's 12-0 spurt midway through the half that finally blunted a gritty performance by the second-seeded Bears (29-6).

Louisville, which closed the game on an 18-2 run, advanced to Monday night's region final against top-seeded Maryland, which beat Vanderbilt on Saturday. It will be an emotional matchup for Jeff Walz, Louisville's second-year coach who spent five years as an assistant at Maryland and was part of the Terrapins' 2006 national championship team.

"As excited as I am, I'm even more excited for these kids because we work them hard, I'm telling you," Walz said. "We have got to be the tougher team on the floor. The first six minutes of the second half, we weren't. They got loose balls, they beat us down the floor in transition. After we got that straightened out, I thought we started to play the way we needed to play."

It was a reversal of last year's frustrating performance in this same position. In that game, the Cardinals -- in the round of 16 for the first time -- blew an 18-point first-half lead against top-seeded North Carolina and lost, 78-74.

This time, with both teams fighting for every basket, the Cardinals came through with the clinching plays that had gotten away from them against the Tar Heels.

"We are not going to go back in that locker room and have that feeling again," McCoughtry said. "Me and Candyce put the team on our backs because we know how it feels."

McCoughtry, who came in averaging 23 points per game, shot just 10 for 28 but had five assists and played all 40 minutes. Louisville shot 37 percent, but helped itself with 15 points off turnovers and had 16 second-chance points.

Melissa Jones scored 13 points to lead the Bears, who had to fight their way through their first two NCAA games and never found their shooting range against the Cardinals. Baylor shot just 25 percent, including 2 for 23 from three-point range.

"They were just able to dig deep and find what they could do to beat us," Jones said.

-- IOWA ST. 69, MICHIGAN ST. 68: In Berkeley, Calif., Alison Lacey's three-pointer from the top of the key with 23 seconds remaining capped a furious comeback, leading the fourth-seeded Cyclones to a victory over the ninth-seeded Spartans and a trip to the West Region finals.

Iowa State (27-8) trailed, 68-61, after Aisha Jefferson's basket with 1:26 to play and looked poised to become the Spartans' next upset victim before scoring the final eight points.

Nicky Wieben scored her only basket on a putback and the Cyclones turned up the pressure on defense. Heather Ezell banked in a three-pointer to cut the lead to two and after a turnover by Michigan State (22-11), Lacey hit her biggest shot on a 29-point night.

Michigan State had one last trip, but Kalisha Keane missed a three-pointer and Jefferson and Lykendra Johnson missed shots from in close.