(Photo Troy Taormina USA Today)

Despite a little fight late in the game from the cougars our Cardinals had no problem winning the second game of the season against Houston 77-62. This gives the Cardinals their 6th road win of the season and they have now won 30 straight against unranked teams. The Cards are now 19-4 overall and 8-2 in the AAC and will now get back in the gym and go back to work as they have 8 days off to prepare for the next one.

With Wayne Blackshear out with a concussion the Cards were a little thin tonight and coach Pitino had to shuffle the starting line-up. Stephan, Luke, Montrezl, Russ and Chris got the nod. We needed some solid minutes tonight from VanTreese and while he’s not going to “wow” anyone with his offensive game he does hustle when he’s on the floor. His hustle stats tonight were 4 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal. And he did manage 4 points. Still not good enough but at least it’s something from that 5 spot.
Luke has to be the play maker for this team and if they are to have any success he’s got to play that role every night out. He has to be like Francisco was for that 2005 group. Tonight he had some careless turnovers but did manage 15 points, led the team in rebounds with 7, and had 2 assist with one steal. He also went 8-9 from the charity stripe.
Montrezl has to start going after rebounds with the same enthusiasm that he has when he dunks a basketball. No reason he should be out-rebounded by Luke or any guy on the team. And he was 1-7 on the free throw line. That’s not going to win games in March. He finished with 15 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assist and 2 steals. And I’m probably being hard on him, but nobody is as hard on Trez as he is himself. He will keep getting better.
Russ can be, and most of the time will be the best player on the floor. When he is making the right decisions the team is usually on a good run in the game. But when he decides to make a few knuckle head decisions with the ball that usually gives the opposing team a chance to break the run and go on one of their own. Tonight Russ made good decisions and led the team with 17 points, 2 rebounds and 6 assist.
At one sequence in the late stages of the game (6:22) Chris Jones hit a three point shot then gets the steal on the inbounds and hits another jumper. This stopped a Houston run that had them within nine points and got the Cards back up 14. This defines what kind of player Chris is. He is a game changer. He had 14 points, 3 assist and 5 steals tonight.
Terry had a good night coming off the bench proving that he is a team player and went just as hard as if he had started. He finished with 9 points and 5 rebounds.

This Louisville team is still in a learning process. They will play one half of basketball where they could go toe to toe with anyone in the country. Tonight they shot just under 70 percent from the field in the first half, including 6 of 10 from behind the arc in building a 19-point halftime lead.
But then they will have a half where they could get beat by anyone in the country. Tonight late in the second half they looked gassed at times and made some bad decisions with the ball. And they had defensive lapses. This allowed Houston to make a game of it down the stretch.
With the Cards this year it’s one half of awesome basketball and one half of survival basketball. They must maintain that kill instinct on defense for the full forty minutes like they did last year.

This team will now get 8 days to recoup, regroup and regain some more knowledge from Coach Pitino. When they return to the court we will be coming down the stretch. Big games against Memphis and Cincy await on their home floors. And then it’s tourney time!