Battle 4 Atlantis championship games are stupid. I’ve been saying it since 2012.

Louisville fell to 0-3 in such contests with a 69-64 loss to Oklahoma on Friday night in the Bahamas, putting a bitter end to what had been a very nice week for the Cardinals.

Adding to the pain was the fact that starting forward Kasean Pryor went down early in the second half with what appeared to be a fairly serious knee injury.

Even without Pryor, U of L fought its way back into a game in which they trailed almost from start to finish. They scored several points in the final five minutes of the game, but unlike the day before against West Virginia, they never managed to score the ball that got them over the mound and into the driver’s seat.

It wasn’t for lack of opportunity.

Louisville failed on 10 of its final 12 field goal attempts of the game, including an open three-pointer from the left corner by Noah Watterman that could have given them the lead with less than 15 seconds to play. U of L’s last gasp to extend the game was quickly thwarted when Chucky Hepburn’s inbounds pass was deflected and stolen by Oklahoma’s Sam Godwin with seven seconds left.

While the Cardinals outrebounded Oklahoma by 21 points and fought tooth and nail against a Sooner team that took its shots much higher than they did, the free throw line can easily be described as where the game took place won and lost.

Louisville failed on seven of its 16 freebies, including three front-end one-and-ones. OU, meanwhile, was 19 of 25 players.

It’s a shame it ended like this, but my goodness, it felt good to be alive again this week. Here’s hoping Kasean is just dealing with a sprain (it didn’t look good) and that the team can take home the good energy from this week.

Ole Miss awaits Tuesday night at the Yum Center and Duke will follow five days later. There’s no time to lick any wounds.