LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Few of the thousands of fans at Sunday's NCAA tournament second-round game between No. 3 seed Louisville and sixth-seeded DePaul would have been foolish enough to take the lower seed for granted.
Cardinals coach Jeff Walz cautioned against it before the game, and the memories of Big East and Conference USA battles before the schools parted company shouldn't be too distant.
If nothing else, the fans surely remembered the torrid shooting DePaul used to roll to a first-round win.
Here more than almost anywhere, no one took the Blue Demons for granted.
But someone who arrived on the banks of the Ohio River on Sunday afternoon with no prior knowledge of the situation could have been forgiven for watching the two teams warm up and wondering if it might be a dull show.