Michael Conroy / AP

Michigan State's Delvon Roe, left, and Durrell Summers celebrate a score. The Spartans beat the No. 1 seed Cardinals on Sunday in the Midwest Regional final.

The combination sent Louisville to its second straight regional final loss and marked the third straight year Pitino’s team was eliminated on the second day of a weekend.

But Pitino didn’t blame this one on fatigue.

Instead, he credited Michigan State for playing a physical, deliberate style that finally broke the Cardinals — just as Izzo choreographed it.

“The game plan was beautiful. The guys executed the game plan to perfection,” Johnson said. “The key to the game was going to be the pace of the game and our defense. We got the pace and we played great defense and that was the key.”

The Cardinals never figured it out, and never managed to produce one of those trademark scoring runs.

Clark led Louisville with 19 points, but the only other player to reach double figures was backup guard Preston Knowles, who had all 11 points in the first half. Williams finished with five points, six rebounds and four assists.

Just about everything went the Spartans’ way.

Although Louisville trailed 30-27 at the half, Williams acknowledged the sluggish start affected the Cardinals’ second-half performance.

They did manage to take a 34-32 lead with 15:33 to go, but then the Spartans took control.

With Suton on the bench, Michigan State went on a 9-2 run to rebuild a 41-36 lead. Then Summers got going. He hit a long jumper, just inside the 3-point line, followed that with a 3 and ended the 17-7 spurt with another three to give Michigan State an insurmountable 58-43 lead with 5:50 to go.

Louisville had only one more basket the rest of the way, finishing this part of Michigan State’s drive to the Final Four.

“It’s as big a win as our school has had because we’re going to Detroit, and that’s been a dream and a goal since they announced where the Final Four was in 2009,” Izzo said.

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