The Cards could be the number one college basketball team in the country on Monday afternoon when the new rankings come out. And they played like the number one team today putting a thrashing on the South Florida Bulls 64-38. The Cards have now won 10 straight and their 15th game overall. They are now 3-0 in Big East play. South Florida drops to 0-3 and are now 2-40 all-time against teams ranked in the top 10.
Coach Stan Heath on Louisville: “That was a wow, that’s a very good team.””They keep bringing guys in and bringing guys in, changing defenses from zone to man.””They’re legitimate to win it all.”
Last year the Cards were booed off of the court at the end of the South Florida game as they lost on senior day 58-51. But today, perhaps with revenge on their minds came out early and took the bull by the horns and never let go. Louisville now leads this series 26 to 4, and held the Bulls to their lowest Big East point total ever. I mentioned in my pregame breakdown that the Cardinal front-court players would have to step up big today and boy did they ever. Gorgui Dieng had 12 points, and 16 boards. It was Dieng’s 4th double-double of the year and his 3rd in a row having one in every Big East game so far. Chane Behanan in his return from an ankle injury had 7 points and 12 rebounds. It was Behanan’s 3 game with double digit rebounds for the season. Freshman Montrezl Harrell got the start today and provided some valuable minutes scoring 2 points and grabbing 4 rebounds. Cards scored 36 of their 64 points in the paint. It was a huge day for senior Peyton Siva as he led all scorers with 17 points and became the 64th Louisville player to reach the 1000 mark. Russ had a productive but quite day with 8 points. The Louisville bench had a big day today with 21 points.
The Cards came into this game today ranked 2nd nationally in turnover margin at +8.1 and forcing 20.3 turnovers a game. They are scoring 34% of their points this season off of those turnovers. Today they forced the Bulls into 17 turnovers and scored 17 points off of those turnovers. The Cards came into this game today ranked 3rd nationally in steals with 11.5 per game with Siva and Smith averaging 4.8 of those. Today the Cards got 6 steals and Siva had 3 of those. Smith didn’t have any steals today. Another thing mentioned in my pregame breakdown was the fact that South Florida had done such a poor job on the glass in their previous Big East games. That trend continued today as the Cards out-rebounded them 49 to 24. The Cards really looked good today on the defensive end of the floor in what might have been their best defensive outing of the season. Coach Pitino was really happy with the defensive effort today saying “We’re getting a lot better at the defensive end. From Seton Hall halftime to now, I can’t be any more pleased.” He also said of the defense “As a team, we had a group of young men start the Seton Hall game, and came out of it as a group of tough men.”
With a Michigan loss tomorrow its a pretty sure bet that the Cards will be the number one team in the country come Monday. But they won’t get long to enjoy it as they have to travel to Hartford for a Big Monday match-up with a UCONN team that is have a very decent season of their own. They just beat Notre Dame today ending their long home winning streak. Will be a very tough road battle but just another night in the Big East.
