Hope for a Lengthy Louisville Tournament Run Renewed with Comeback Win vs. UNC

Revenge is a dish best served in the KFC Yum! Center.

Three weeks ago in Chapel Hill, North Carolina trailed Louisville by 13 points with eight-and-a-half minutes remaining before storming back for a one-point win.

On this Saturday, though, it was Louisville's turn for the huge comeback win. The No. 10 Cardinals trailed by 18 points in the second half on their home court before going on an incredible run and forcing overtime against the No. 13 Tar Heels, ultimately winning by a score of 78-68.

Seth Davis of Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports noted how ridiculous the comeback was:

It didn't come a moment too soon, either, because we were starting to seriously wonder whether Louisville has what it takes for a deep run in this year's NCAA tournament.

The 17-3 (now 18-3) record looked nice, but it hid the fact that the Cardinals were 0-3 vs. RPI Top 30 teams and had little more than a few wins over undersized Big Ten teams—Ohio State and Indiana—to brag about.

We had every reason to believe they could beat a couple of double-digit seeds to reach the Sweet 16, but not much reason to expect anything more than that.

In the games that really mattered, they shot 13-of-58 (22.4 percent) from three-point range, and Montrezl Harrell was nowhere near his dominant self in the paint, averaging 9.3 points and 9.0 rebounds in losses to Duke, Kentucky and North Carolina.

But after an incredible 22-point, 15-rebound performance, both Harrell and the Cardinals finally have a game to hang their hats on.

"He was possessed," head coach Rick Pitino told reporters after the game, per The Courier-Journal.

Not surprisingly, it was an earth-shaking dunk by Harrell that really got things going for Louisville.

"

Just saw the Montrezl Harrell dunk and I have no idea how a human could have finished that slam.

— Sam Vecenie (@Sam_Vecenie) January 31, 2015"

The Cardinals still trailed by eight points after the alley-oop that had Dave O'Brien screaming louder than Dick Vitale, but it was the life that both the team and the arena needed.

How anyone could watch this game unfold and not believe in momentum in sports is a mystery, because from that point forward, the Cardinals had a different swagger that we really hadn't seen out of them in big games.

They looked tentative taking shots in the first half but were playing with a renewed sense of confidence that every shot would either go in or result in an offensive rebound.

That rebounding department was where things were really night and day for the Cardinals—and where they need to continue to take advantage against future opponents.

Louisville needs to realize, accept and embrace the fact that it is not a great shooting team. Sometimes Terry Rozier will be hot. Less frequently, Chris Jones will hit a good number of his shots. But the Cardinals have now proved on multiple occasions that they don't need to shoot well in order to win.

They shot just 33.8 percent from the field on Saturday and still scored 78 points. It was the fifth time this season they made fewer than 39 percent of their field-goal attempts yet won the game.

USA TODAY Sports

Offensive rebounding is a big reason why.

The Tar Heels were all over the offensive glass in the first half. They had 11 offensive boards at the break, including one absurd four-rebound possession. During a stretch of nearly nine minutes, North Carolina had seven offensive rebounds while Louisville had just one defensive rebound.

The Cardinals completely flipped the script after halftime, though, grabbing 16 offensive rebounds over the final 25 minutes while the Tar Heels grabbed just two.

Between Harrell, Chinanu Onuaku and Mangok Mathiang, we have to wonder why they can't do even more of that while also taking better advantage of those second-chance opportunities.

They grabbed 18 offensive rebounds against both Kentucky and Duke but managed to score just 50 and 52 points in those games, respectively. They just needed some of those emphatic putback dunks like we saw in the big win over Indiana earlier this season.

The other big key for Louisville is its outstanding defense—which had been uncharacteristically lackluster in recent games.

Over the past couple of seasons, it was VCU at No. 1 in the nation in turnover percentage and Louisville at No. 2. Through 16 games, it certainly looked like the Cardinals were headed for another season near the top of that category, as they were averaging 10.1 steals per game.

But, all of a sudden, they forgot how to force turnovers. In the four games before playing North Carolina, the Cardinals were averaging 4.0 steals per game and allowing 66.5 points per game—and that's not a great place to be for a team that relies heavily on fast-break opportunities and doesn't shoot three-pointers very well at all.

The Cardinals got back to business against the Tar Heels, though, tallying 10 steals and forcing 19 turnovers. As the shots continually refused to fall, it was the defense that kept them in the game until the offensive rebounding took it over.

And, really, that's all it's going to take for Louisville to remain one of the best teams in the country.

If the Cardinals don't believe us, they can just ask their loathed rivals. Shooting has come and gone this season for Kentucky, but it's because of their exceptional defense and offensive rebounding that the Wildcats have remained undefeated to this point in the year.

Now that Louisville has shown an ability to execute in both of those aspects of the game against one of the nation's best teams, the Cardinals are officially a huge threat to win their second national championship in three years.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.