– “Russdiculous” homecoming for Masiello
The first thing Coach Steve Masiello said when he hit the podium this afternoon “Well, that was some homecoming.” And boy was it ever? It was a “Russdiculous” homecoming for the Jaspers head coach as our #2 Louisville Cardinals beat Manhattan 79-51 in their season opener.
This past week the horse “Russdiculous” finished 4th place in a race, but today it was the two legged “Russdiculous” who led his team to a victory scoring 23 points on 8-18 shooting and making 4 of 13 from the 3 point line. Smith was also disruptive on the defensive end, with five steals. Chane Behanan made his return to the Cardinal line-up and had nine rebounds with eight points. Peyton Siva had 10 points and 10 assists, while Kevin Ware added 10 points for the Cardinals.
Coach Pitino when asked today Who can you not win without?: “Russ Smith”
Louisville’s consensus top-5 preseason ranking is largely based around a strong defense. According to Synergy Sports Technology, the Cardinals held opponents to 0.764 points per play (PPP) last season and only 38.4 percent shooting. Today the Cardinal Defense would keep that going as they held Manhattan to 35.7 percent shooting. Our Cards scored 32 points, off 27 Manhattan turnovers which was 40,5 percent of all scoring, and they had 16 steals.
I don’t think any of us harbor any illusions about this teams offense and we know that they must cut down on their turnovers in order to get more opportunities to score. This team must also continue to get better on the boards as they were out-rebounded again today 37-33.
Coach Pitino: “One area of improvement has to be rebounding from the guard spot,” “On Monday, I’m going to show Montrezl and Gorgui tapes of Ken Faried.”
Coach Pitino: “The threes are all wide open, we’ve got to make those. Luke and Wayne have to make more of those. Russ rushes them too much.”
It wasn’t an overly impressive victory but Louisville led this game from start to finish and win their 9th straight opener. Next up will be their first game in the “Battle for Atlantis” Tournament on Thursday vs Samford.