It was a family reunion in the KFC Yum center tonight as the father and son battle of Rick Pitino and Richard Pitino took center stage. The game tonight was the first time in 12 years that a father and son had coached against each other in a college basketball game and it’s the 17th time in NCAA Division I history that a father coached against his son. The dads are now 15-2 in these games. It was the elder Pitino that came out on the winning end of things tonight as our #5 Cards roll FIU 79-55.

Our Cards shot 49 percent and hit 12 3-pointers, tying a season high. They also committed just 11 turnovers in winning the 11th annual Billy Minardi Classic, named for Pitino’s brother-in-law who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. The MVP of the Classic was Peyton Siva who had a double-double with 15 points and 12 assist. He looked really good at leading his team tonight. And looked really confident shooting the ball. One of the questions I had going into this game was if Wayne Blackshear would finally have his break-out game and he did just that tonight as he tied his career high with 18 points and had a solid night on the boards grabbing 8 rebounds. He is starting to look more and more like the player we seen in that Final Four game last year and you can see his confidence level rise with every game. Chane Behanan continues to show his dominance in the front-court and had another great outing scoring 14 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. Russ was the usual Russ tonight scoring 14 points and dishing out 4 assist. The #1 defense in the country continues to look very good as tonight they hold a team to 54 points that was averaging over 70 and scored 25 points off of 14 turnovers.

Cards will now get ready for their game this weekend in Nashville against WKU. After that it’s game on for the rest of the way starting with the battle against Kentucky on the 29th.