The Louisville Cardinals have played in and won their first ACC game beating the Wake Forest Demon Deacons tonight 85-76. No matter what happens now the Cardinals can always say that they won the first one. They say first impressions are always the most important and while the Cards weren’t overly impressive tonight they did let the conference know that they are here. The Cardinals have now won their first conference road game for the 8th straight season. Louisville now leads the series over Wake Forest 3-1 and their record against the ACC is now 149-66.
COACH PITINO WAKE FOREST POST GAME
The Cardinals didn’t play their sharpest game of the season and the effort on defense wasn’t the best but Coach Pitino played a lot of guys and was dealing with foul trouble. They Still had 8 steals and 4 blocked shots. The Cardinals found out tonight that they aren’t going to get the whistle on the road in the ACC and had 25 team fouls. The Cardinals were out-rebounded by one 36-35, they ran the offense much better tonight and the shots fell well enough to go 50% from the floor, and 41% from the three. The Louisville bench outscored theirs 16-9.
There were a few solid performances tonight but the most impressive outing was from Chris Jones. He sat down with Paul Rodgers after the game and said “We are more focused now and we know what we need to do to win a national championship and I’m all in”. This kid took a beating from the fans after that Kentucky game and also took a pretty good tongue lashing from his coach. He was benched last week in the game against Long Beach State. He could have easily buried his head in the sand and really struggled to come out of this funk. But talk about exorcising the demons Jones did that tonight showing some Memphis moxie getting his first double-double of his Louisville career scoring 22 points, and dishing out 10 assist. He also had 4 rebounds and 3 steals while only having 2 turnovers. I couldn’t be happier for this guy. If we can keep “Memphis Moxie” around this Cardinal team will be a force to be reckoned with.
Montrezl Harrell wasn’t much of a factor in the second half but did pace the Cardinals with a huge first half. He had his 6th double-double of the season with 25 points, and 13 rebounds. It was a homecoming for Montrezl and there were reportedly signs in the crowd that welcomed him back.
If Louisville fans didn’t understand how important Terry Rozier is to this team they do now. He quickly picked up his 4th foul in the second half with the Cardinals up 46-35, and without his offensive prowess the Cardinals would only score 12 points in the next 9 minutes while Wake Forest closed the gap to 56-55. He did get back into the game and ended up hitting several big-time shots when the Cards needed them the most. He finished with 18 points.
Rick Pitino said after the game tonight about Shaqquan Aaron “He is an active participant, fear of failure is the worst thing for a ball player and he has no fear”. I’ve said from day one that this kid was going to be the real deal and that he would contribute immediately. So far he hasn’t let me down and tonight he hit some big shots scoring 11 points and grabbing 5 rebounds. Can’t wait to see this kid when he adds some bulk. Watch out!
This team is an obvious work in progress. They have to find more consistency on the offensive end of the floor while maintaining the tenacity for 40 minutes on the defensive end of the floor. We have to bring some of the younger guys around and they have to learn the system better. They must become a more cohesive unit and by the sound of some of the post game comments tonight that is slowly coming about. One thing I noticed after the game tonight was the guy’s high-fiving each other and noticed that Chris and Montrezl shared a moment.
The Cardinals are 1-0 in the ACC, ranked #5 in the country and things appear to be on the right track. I still have a lot of optimism about what this team can achieve over the next 3 months. Instead of worrying about the things that need to be fixed I’m just going to enjoy watching the progress every week. It’s going to be a fun conference season folks. Go Cards!