The Cardinals took care of business right out of the gate tonight and won their 20th straight game blowing out Hartford. These Cards haven’t lost a basketball game in 284 days and were never in danger of that tonight as the put their foot on the gas and drove the Hawks right out of the gym from the beginning. Cards move to 4-0 on the season with this win and advance in the round robin style Hall of Fame Tip Off.
The thing that is very noticeable about this Louisville group is their professional demeanor. When this team steps on a basketball court they go to work and forget checking in, it’s more like clocking in. They may lose some games but it won’t be because someone sneaks up on them; that will not happen this year. After the game Coach Pitino said “the defense was still a little behind the offense”, but to the average eye of the fan it looks pretty darn good to me. They were challenged a little more in this game due to Hartford extending them to cover the three point shot and the Hawks were more deliberate with the ball than other opponents the Cards have faced so far. But none of that mattered. The Cardinals still held the Hawks to under 50 points, held them to 41% shooting, 23% on 4-17 from three point land, and forced them into 25 turnovers. Not bad for a group that needs improvement.
This group can also come at teams with so many different options on offense and so far are outscoring opponents by over 30 points a game. The guards can drive the lane to score, shoot the three, the forwards can also score in a variety of ways, and they can hurt you with the power offense down low. There’s just not going to be many teams who are versatile or athletic enough to stop the Louisville attack. You might shut down one thing but this group will find another way. Very exciting to think about the progression as we are just 4 games in and it looks this good. And these guys do a remarkable job of taking care of the ball and are are ranked second in the country in turn-over margin. They only had 7 tonight and so far through four games have only had double digit turnovers once. They are averaging 6. Rebounding needs work but looked better. Cards did win the battle tonight 35 to 29. And free throws were a little better tonight as the Cards shoot about 70%.
As far as individual players go I was really pleased with the minutes I saw from Terry Rozier tonight. He is one of my favorite new guys and I have followed him since he was a recruit. I’m expecting big things out of him and tonight he showed some flashes of that future. He finished with 7 points and 1 rebound.
Montrezl Harrell looked great again and this time leads the team in scoring. He stuffed the stat sheet with 20 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assist, 1 block and 2 steals. If he has nights like this forget about it. And I love the look of he and Chane in at the same time. That’s a power look.
Speaking of Chane Behanan he had 11 points and 4 rebounds but his presence in the game was much bigger than the box score.
Russ Smith made some miraculous shots tonight and got to the basket whenever and wherever he wanted. Just when you think he can’t amaze you anymore he takes it to another level. Russ 2.0 was the second leading scorer behind Trez with 14 points.
The competition hasn’t been top notch but the play of this basketball team has been. We can only hope that they keep speeding past the competition like this all year. I know that now we are all ready to see our Cards take on a team of a higher caliber and hopefully that happens on Sunday afternoon. If UNC gets past Richmond it will happen. I don’t think the Tarheels are playing their best basketball at the moment but they do have the athletes to perform well. The Cards will face Fairfield on Saturday at the Mohegan Sun Arena to advance to the Title game Sunday. Looking forward to this weekend! Go Cards!
Coach Pitino after the game:
