The guys started out a little tight tonight but once they settled in and got adjusted to the bright lights of MSG they were ready to take care of business. The Cardinal’s defense was just incredible tonight and they had Villanova turning the ball over like they were playing against ten defenders. The Cards forced Nova into 25 turnovers, had 12 steals and we learned from coach Pitino after the game that they had 58 deflections. Rick said that’s the most by any team he’s ever coached college or NBA.

I thought they looked really good on the offensive end of the floor tonight and had some decent scoring stretches. Coach Pitino had said earlier this season the he missed his team not being able to hit the three point shot more effectively. Pitino said it was like “losing an old friend.” Well tonight that old friend made a surprise visit as the Cards were 10 of 24 from the three-point line for 41.7%. They also shot a pretty good clip from the field and were 23 of 52 for 44.2%. And very solid from the free-throw line at 18 of 23 for 79.3%. This was a very business like attitude win for this team. They seemed very focused on the task at hand.

The player of the game tonight was New York’s native son Russ Smith. Russ was playing inspired basketball tonight and with a heavy heart as he learned earlier this morning that his former coach from Malloy high school had passed away. Russ and coach Pitino said that they would dedicate the rest of this season to coach Curran. Coach Curran would have been very proud of Russ’s performance tonight. He had a very impressive stat line as he tied former Card Edgar Sosa for the most points by a Cardinal in a Big East tourney game with 28 points.

Peyton Siva has scored in double figures in seven straight Big East tournament games and seems to take his play to another level when he plays at the Garden. He had 10 points, 4 assist and 3 steals. He needs just one more steal to be tied for all-time steals leader with Darrell Griffith. And needs just two more to be the all-time steals leader for Louisville. I think we’ll have a new all-time steal leader after this tourney is over.

The rest of the starters had workmen like performances and nothing you would call spectacular but they did their jobs and were very effective tonight. Would like to see more out of Gorgui as I think he was too quiet in the first half. And Chane is a NCAA tournament performer. That’s when we see him turn it up a notch. Wayne? I guess we’ll see him turn it up in the Final Four.

We got great minutes out of our bench again tonight with 17 points out of Ware, Hancock and Harrell. Stephan Van Treese had 8 rebounds. Bench performance is one if the most important things in the post season. These guys are getting it done.