By Russ Brown
Special to NKyTribune
LOUISVILLE — A year ago, while being grilled about a blowout against an inferior opponent, after Louisville had scored at will even in the waning minutes, coach Rick Pitino defended himself with this memorable wisecrack:
“What did you want me to do? I was playing four white guys and an Egyptian?”
Saturday in Atlanta, that Egyptian, Anas Mahmoud, saved the day for the Cardinals in their hard-fought 75-71 win over Georgia Tech in McCamish Pavilion.
No joke.
Playing a career-high 27 minutes, the skinny 7-footer from Cairo by way of West Oaks Academy in Orlando, Fla., came off the bench to score a career-best 15 points and added four rebounds, two assists and a blocked shot, with no turnovers.
“Anas was great,” Pitino said on his post-game radio show. “I told him I’ve been waiting a long time for the Egyptian to rise out of the pyramids and he did rise in a big way. He played absolutely great low post offense.”
Going into the game, Mahmoud’s previous high point total was seven, three times, the latest against Clemson on Jan. 10 when he also grabbed 10 rebounds. He was averaging 2.6 ppg and had played just seven minutes in Wednesday’s 84-65 rout of Florida State, getting two points.
Exhibiting a variety of moves underneath and scoring with both his left hand and right hand, Mahmoud hit six of nine shots. He scored 13 of his points in the second half after UofL had trailed 39-32 at intermission.
“He’s been playing great in offense and his low post game, because he’s so long, is excellent,” Pitino said. “And the good thing about him is they don’t double off of him he has such a long reach. The one thing that’s so noticeable when you put him in the game is his energy is always incredible and I’m real proud of him.”
So impressive was the sophomore’s performance that the ESPN announcers said he was playing like Patrick Ewing or Hakeem Olajuwon.
“It was really good, a fun game. Awesome,” Mahmoud said. “Trey (Lewis) kept coming to me in the low post and he created some space for me every time he spun away from defenders.”
Those two combined on a critical sequence with 1:01 remaining when Mahmoud got free under the basket, took a pass from Lewis and was fouled by Marcus Georges-Hunt. He hit both free throws for a 71-69 lead.
And scoring wasn’t Mahmoud’s contribution. He came up with perhaps the game’s most important defensive play. With No. 17/16 UofL (16-3, 5-1) clinging to a 68-67 lead with under two minutes remaining, Georges-Hunt, who led all scorers with 23 points, had a clear path to the basket and looked as if he would score on an easy layup. But Mahmoud came out of nowhere to block the shot.
“I was on the weak side and Trey (Lewis) got beat, so I had to step up and do something about it,” he said.
All this despite giving up nearly 50 pounds each to Tech’s two biggest interior players and getting pushed around in the low post.
“He’s got a weak lower body,” Pitino said of the 210-pounder. “He’s never going to have a strong lower body, so he’s got to front the man and use his length, and he’s started to do that.”
Mahmoud was a factor right up until the end. With the game still in doubt, he went out on the perimeter to contest a 3-pointer and force a miss by Adam Smith that would have pulled the Yellow Jackets (11-8, 1-5) within one point with under 10 seconds left.
Quentin Snider and Donovan Mitchell had ended Louisville’s scoring by making two foul shots each.
Besides Mahmoud, another encouraging sign for the Cards was the outside shooting of Damion Lee and Trey Lewis, who had been battling a slump, but combined to hit 5-of-11 3-pointers. Lee led UofL with 17 points, while Lewis had 12.
With the score tied at 65-65, Lee hit a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer from the left wing off a pass from Snider that might have come too quickly, but his coach didn’t object.
“When you’ve got a great basketball player, you let him go,” Pitino said. “I wouldn’t be upset if he missed it. He’s got the green light. I’m not gonna teach him at his age how to play offense. He knows how to play it.”
With their third straight win, the Cards moved ahead of Virginia Tech (4-1) into second place in the ACC behind North Carolina (5-0).
UofL will play the Hokies Wednesday in Blacksburg, Va. In the meantime, though, Va. Tech will host the Tar Heels Sunday.
“Georgia Tech is a tough team and it’s a tough road victory,” Pitino said. “I’m so happy with this road victory right now because on a night when the bunnies weren’t falling inside, on a night when our defense wasn’t great, we won the game and put it away in the final five minutes.”