In the battle of two coaching titans Rick Pitino got the better of Bob Huggins tonight with their strong frontcourt play and an even stronger full-court pressing half-court zone stifling D as the Louisville Cardinals defeat the West Virginia Mountaineers 63-54. Joe Alexander scored a team-high 22 points in a losing effort. He was in 7 of 14 in field goal shooting and 7 for 11 at the foul line.
Louisville showcased thier stifling zone D to get it started and were up 5-2 early but Alex Ruoff rains a 3 to break the zone and tie the game at 7. The Cards were outjumping the small WVU defense for put-backs. WVU kept changing-up their defense early on each possession confusing Louisville for a brief time yet on the other end the Cards were still making key offensive rebounds for put-backs. Joe Mazzulla showed off some super hustle but couldn’t handle the full court pressure as Louisville build a 20-15 lead off a Jerry Smith breakaway dunk with 8:12 remaining in the first half. Following their spurt Alexander drove to the hoop for the SportsCenter highlight jam. Then Rouff’s rainbow 3 tied the game up at 22. Da’Sean Butler joined Jaime Smalligan and Wellington Smith on the bench once again with 2 fouls. Trouble for the ‘Eers set in big time when Louisville’s full court pressure and the ability to outjumped the Mountaineer frontcourt continues to give Coach Huggs fits. They were unable to control Louisville’s 10-2 run to end the half with the biggest lead of the game so far at 32-24. WVU’s 24 pts was so far the season’s lowest output of the first half.
In the second half, WVU made some drives to the bucket by Nichols and Butler to trim the lead to 6 but Nichols ill-timed decisions in the open court plus the fact that Louisville was contesting their every shot brought the Cards back up to double digits, up to 12 at one point, at 42-30. Throw in the fact that Louisville has a deeper bench outscoring our bench by the tune of 30 to 4. That bench was led by David Padgett, Edgar Sosa, and Earl Clark who scored 11 points with a game-high 12 rebounds. There was no hope of a Mountaineer comeback even with Alexander being the go-to guy but he can’t hit every 17 foot jumper or every foul shot. He will at least be stronger in his all-around game to eventually become an 1st round NBA draft pick. Louisville’s lead kept rising and rising with, you guessed it, frontcourt play and stifling D taking the lead to 21 at one point. This is starting to sound like a broken record so I’ll stop there and move on but let me just add that WVU did score the final 12 points of the game. Take it for what it’s worth.
There’s no place like home and let’s make sure of that this Sunday when the West Virginia Mountaineers play the Syracuse Orangemen at 2:30pm. Sellout this joint and make the Coliseum rockin’. I’d go there myself but I understand the tickets are all sold out so everyone has to be there (if you can’t make it give me a call). While you’re at it arrive early so that you’ll be able to see a Top 25 matchup between the West Virginia women’s basketball team and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame. The tipoff there will be at high noon. Let’s regroup and score some wins Sunday. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MOUNTAINEERS!
