Louisville Cardinals' players feeling under the weather

Both No. 2 seed Duke and No. 1 seed Louisville had plenty to celebrate Friday night, as both teams lived to dance another day.

But the Cardinals' celebration was undoubtedly diminished by the fact that an illness has spread throughout the locker room.

Louisville head coach Rick Pitino had the following to say after his team's 77-69 victory over Oregon,

I sort of had to prod our guys the entire night. Unfortunately, Russ [Smith] has infected our entire team with a ridiculous cold, and all our guys are really sick. And it took a lot out of us because Oregon's so good. When Peyton got in foul trouble, Russ had to play way too many minutes, and everybody's coughing and hacking at every timeout.

We just had to get our guys through it, and hopefully we'll get better. The only problem is on every timeout Russ is hacking in our faces. Every 30 seconds, just like this. So keep your distance and you'll all have pneumonia by the morning, like Gorgui [Dieng] and me.

Smith confirmed to reporters that he is "terribly sick", but later backed off the severity of the illness. Smith also revealed guard Peyton Siva and forward Chane Behanan have colds as well.

While all the infected players were on the floor Friday night, the presence of the illness begs the question whether or not the sick Cardinals can run the floor with the same intensity they showed in the Sweet 16 when there are fewer than 48 hours between games. The health of Louisville is something to keep an eye on as we approach Sunday's 5:05 Elite 8 tipoff.