feb. 16, 2011 issue

VOLUME XV • NUMBER 26FEBRUARY 16, 2011

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LOUISVILLE SPORTSREPORT FEBRUARY 3, 2011

FEBRUARY 16, 2011 LOUISVILLE SPORTSREPORT PAGE 3

E D I T O R I A L S T A F F

GENERAL MANAGER - Jack Coffee

SENIOR WRITER AND EDITOR - Russ Brown

OPERATIONS MANAGER - Howie Lindsey

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES - Mickey Clark, Betty Olsen and Blanche Kitchen

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS - Dave Klotz, Shelley Feller, Gail Kamenish,

Howie Lindsey and Chuck Feist

CONTRIBUTING COLUMNISTS - Matt Willinger, Jeff Wafford,

Jason Puckett and Rick Cushing

GRAPHIC DESIGNER - Scott Stortz

COPY EDITOR - Rick Cushing

The Louisville SportsReport is printed in Kentucky and based in Louisville. It is published weekly in January, February and March, monthly in April, May, June and July and weekly mid-August through late December by Louisville Sports News, L.L.C., in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville Sports News, L.L.C.: Owner and General Manager - Jack Coffee. The SportsReport was founded in 1996. United States Postal Number: 015255

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VOLUME XV, NUMBER 26 • FEBRUARY 16, 2011

CSPACOLLEGESPORTS

PUBLISHERSASSOCIATIONCOVER PHOTO BY SHELLEY FELLER

DESIGN BY SCOTT STORTZ

AMERICA’S FOREMOST AUTHORITY ONUNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE ATHLETICS®

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W H A T ’ S I N S I D E

4 RECRUITING: CLINT HURTT NAMED RECRUITER OF THE YEAR By Jeff Wafford6 BUCKLES ATTACKING THE BOARD WHILE SHAKING OFF RUST By Russ Brown8 YOU CAN BREATHE NOW THAT RECRUITING SEASON IS OVER By Jack Coffee9 THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY By Howie Lindsey11,13 PHOTOS FROM THE 1986 SILVER ANNIVERSARY By Dave Klotz, Shelley Feller

16 HUSKIES WILL BE SEEKING REVENGE AGAINST CARDS By Rick Cushing18,19 PITT, DEPAUL ONLY CONSTANTS IN UNPREDICTABLE BIG EAST By Russ Brown20 CARDINAL STARS OF THE WEEK By Howie Lindsey21 SCARLET KNIGHTS ARE NOT TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY By Rick Cushing24 CLOSE-KNIT, EGOLESS CARDS HAVE PITINO ‘SUPER EXCITED’ By Russ Brown

4 KURIC IS A SYRACUSE KILLERWith 23 points, including fi ve threes, Kyle Kuric helped Louisville knock off No. 12 Syracuse for the seventh time in a row Saturday. What’s gotten into Kuric lately? Russ Brown spoke with the junior.

10 REMEMBERING 1986Hall of Famer Denny Crum and most of the members of the 1986 team came back to town over the weekend to celebrate the silver (25th) anniversary of their national championship. Check out more photos inside.

5 CARDS OUTLAST ORANGELouisville built a 20-point lead early in the second half but had to hang on for a four-point win after the Syracuse Orange came storming back in the second half. Preston Knowles had 22 points.

15 CINCINNATI UP NEXTAfter falling to St. John’s Sunday, Mick Cronin and the Cincinnati Bearcats won’t just be hungry, they’ll be starving for a win when Louisville comes to town Wednesday night. The Cardinals are currently fourth in the Big East at 8-4.

7 MOTION STOPS MOVING IN OTRick Pitino and the Cardinals used a motion offense to hang with the No. 8-ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish last Wednesday, but the Cardinals were blown out in overtime when the motion stopped moving.

17 WOMEN STILL BATTLINGThe Louisville women bolstered their chances of making the NCAA Tournament this season with Sunday’s win over WVU. The Cardinals need to win two more league games to ensure a .500 or better league record.

‘SIGN, SIGN, EVERYWHERE A SIGN...’ Louisville fans in the student section held up signs that read “MISS IT” when Syracuse forward C.J. Fair was trying to shoot a free throw during Saturday’s game at the KFC Yum! Center. Louisville beat the 12th-ranked Orange 73-69. - photo by Dave Klotz

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LOUISVILLE BASKETBALL

ALL IS GOING WELL IN KURIC’S KORNERBy Russ Brown Kyle Kuric is by far the quietest member of

the Louisville basketball team, but he’s been making plenty of noise on the court lately.

Kuric is currently the hottest Cardinal of all and will surely be a focus of Cincinnati’s de-fense Wednesday night when the Bearcats (19-6, 6-6) host UofL in Fifth Third Arena.

The 6-4 junior forward produced the fi rst back-to-back 20-point games of his collegiate career and is on fi re as a shooter. Just ask Notre Dame and Syracuse.

Against the Irish last Wednesday Kuric hit 4 of 7 three-point shots, 9 of 14 shots overall, and all six of his free throws for a career-high 28 points in an 89-79 overtime loss. Then in Saturday’s 73-69 victory over Syracuse he led his team again with 23 points, hitting 5 of 7 treys and 9 of 15 overall. In those two games he has also totaled 11 rebounds and fi ve as-sists.

In his last fi ve games, the Evansville, Ind., product has hit 33 of 53 shots for 62.2 percent, including 17 of 28 treys (60.7 percent). On the season he’s averaging a modest 9.6 points per game, but in the last fi ve he is averaging a team-best 18.8 ppg. And his four double-fi g-ure games during that span are just one fewer than he had in his other 18 this season.

Why the sudden surge? Kuric credits his teammates and a change in approach.

“It’s the same every game ... our guards penetrating and getting me open looks, run-ning the fl oor,” he said. “Outside of that, it’s putting work in, focusing on my form, and I’ve been more aggressive. Coach has talked about that almost all year, and I think I’m starting to see how much it helps me to play that way.”

UofL’s new motion offense also has bene-fi ted Kuric, who is much better using screens and as a spot-up shooter than he is trying to take a defender off the dribble to create his own shot.

“I really like the motion (offense) because you’re not forced to do one thing,” he said. “Maybe I’m going to go back door, maybe I’m going to set a screen, maybe I’m going to come off a screen. It’s tough to guard with the guys we have.”

Kuric is especially deadly in the left corner, which his teammates have dubbed “Kuric’s Korner,” and now he’s starting to shoot more from the right corner, where he appears to be just as accurate.

“I don’t know why, but the corner has al-ways been my favorite spot,” he said. “I’ve been shooting from there ever since grade school. I think it will always be my favorite spot.”

This is by far Kuric’s hottest shooting streak since he’s been at UofL.

“Kyle runs that triangle (play) great,” coach Rick Pitino said. “We try to let him work the tri-angle. He’s got a very good fl oater in the lane, he’s a good passer, and then he gets out to the corner. If he gets in that left corner, that’s his corner. We call that every play, and we look for Kyle in that left corner. A lot of players don’t like shooting the corner shot, but he does.

“I think the motion helps him a lot. He’s not a pick-and-roll guy; he does spot up well. But the more motion you put in Kuric’s game, Mike Marra’s game ... they’re not guys who will beat you off the bounce; they’re not bounce guys. Whether Kyle can consistently have the type of games he’s been having, I don’t know.”

Can Kuric maintain his hot hand the rest of the season?

“I hope so,” said the man of few words.A FOUL TECHNICALKuric was shocked when he was called for

a technical foul after his ferocious, fl ying, one-

handed dunk against Notre Dame, but no more so than his teammates and Pitino.

“You guys know Kyle don’t talk,” Peyton Siva said. “Kyle can’t say two words. He’s right there; you guys ask him, he won’t say a word. He dunked on the guy, he didn’t want to land on him, he looked down and that was the end of it.”

As the fi rst half was coming to an end, Ku-ric charged from the right wing, took a pass from Siva and uncorked a monstrous dunk over Notre Dame’s Scott Martin, who fell to the fl oor. Kuric stood over him for perhaps a second or two but didn’t say a word and didn’t make a gesture.

Still, offi cial Pat Driscoll called the technical with eight-tenths of a second left in the half, much to everyone’s bewilderment.

“I dunked, came down, he (Martin) was lay-ing there,” Kuric said. “I just looked at him for a second, turned around and the ref said I taunted him. I was surprised, but I didn’t argue because I didn’t want to get another one.”

Kuric said it was his fi rst technical since grade school.

Asked about Kuric’s technical immediately after the game, Pitino said: “First of all, he’s a mime. The ref said Kyle said something, but he hasn’t said anything in three years. He’s a complete mime and the nicest young man on the team.”

Pitino elaborated on the situation at his weekly press conference last Friday.

“With that referee’s call, I went up to (Driscoll) and said, ‘That’s the most absurd call I’ve seen since I’ve been a coach.’ He said, ‘No, no, he said something.’ I said, ‘That’s impossible. He’s been a mime for three years. Give me another excuse, I know he didn’t say a word.’

“The ref walks away from me, he’d had enough of me. He came back 15 seconds later and said, ‘OK, I made a mistake. He didn’t say

anything, but he looked at him.’ I said, ‘He mayhave looked down at the man for a brief second,but everything you’re saying can’t be true.’

“I watched the fi lm and it was a very poor call made by a very good offi cial. He doesn’t knowthe personalities, so he saw someone dunk andbriefl y stand there. You see guys pounding theirchest, pulling their uniforms out, and Kyle Ku-ric is the antithesis of all of that. But the refereedoesn’t know he’s a mime.

“I didn’t say anything to Kyle. I was just hap-py he dunked the ball; it was great to watch.He briefl y looked down at the guy, but if that’staunting, then we’re getting a little .... He’s nota taunting guy, but we lived with the call. Ithurt our momentum going into halftime, but itwasn’t the reason we lost the game.”

Later that night, Kuric’s dunk was featured as ESPN’s Play of the Day.

Even more ridiculous than the technical foul itself was the reaction of former mad-man coach/now overbearing ESPN analyst BobKnight. He called Kuric “idiotic” and after thegame insinuated that Kuric should be blamedfor the loss.

This is just what college basketball viewers need: A lecture on behavior from one of themost boorish, undisciplined, foul-mouthed,hypocritical persons on the planet.

Big East spokesman Chuck Sullivan said the conference would have no comment on thetechnical, explaining that technical fouls arejudgment calls by the offi cials. He referred toa passage in the 2011 NCAA rulebook — Rule10, Section 5, article 1b. It calls for penaltiesfor: “Using profanity or vulgarity; taunting,baiting or ridiculing another player or benchpersonnel; or pointing a fi nger at or makingobscene gestures toward another player orbench personnel.”

The rulebook states that reducing taunting is a “point of emphasis” for this season.

After hitting 5 of 7 three-point attempts against Syracuse, juniorKyle Kuric has now made 17 of his last 28 attempts (60.7 percent). He’s averaging 18.8 points over the last fi ve games. - photo by Dave Klotz

By Jeff WaffordUniversity of Louisville assistant football

coach Clint Hurtt was named 2011 National Recruiter of the Year by ESPN last Wednes-day.

Formerly the recruiting coordinator at Mi-ami, Hurtt became the Cardinals’ defensive line coach a season ago and played a large role in UofL landing the highest-rated recruit-ing class in school history.

“It’s something I didn’t expect, but it’s a great honor and something I am very proud of,” Hurtt told ESPN after receiving the award. “I think the biggest reason why I had suc-cess this season was that these families were very comfortable with me. It’s about creating those relationships and building trust.”

Hurtt was able to use his familiarity with the South Florida area to help the Cards land 10 players from the region, including a quar-tet of four-star players from Miami. Hurtt also was instrumental in landing Broward County Defensive Player of the Year B.J. Dubose, who originally committed to Miami before chang-ing his mind on Signing Day.

“First he went to see BJ and he wasn’t interested. Then he went back and he was interested,” Strong said. “So BJ visited here and then visited Miami and said he wanted to go to Miami, I guess. But we just kept recruit-ing him. That’s the thing about Coach Hurtt. He’s so relentless and he never wants to give up. He does not want to lose a recruit. He takes it personally.”

Hurtt also was named the Big East Recruit-er of the Year and one of the Top 25 Recruit-ers of the Year by Rivals.com.

JERRELL MOORE SIGNS WITH CARDSLouisville added to its 2011 recruiting class

on Friday when Fern Creek H.S. (Louisville) athlete Jerrell Moore (5-11, 175) signed a let-ter of intent with the Cardinals, choosing to stay home instead of playing at Central Flori-da. He also had offers from Eastern Michigan, Kentucky, Illinois and Western Kentucky.

A three-star player and the No. 9-rated recruit in Kentucky, Moore had been com-mitted to the Cardinals for more than a year before he was told at the beginning of 2011 that he no longer had a scholarship available at UofL due to a lack of space in the recruit-ing class.

However, after being told on National Signing Day that there was room for him, Moore decided to re-think his decision, an-nouncing he would make an announcement on Feb. 11, which he did.

“It all worked out,” Moore said about his fi nal decision. “If you asked me two weeks ago, I probably couldn’t have told you where I’d be. But I always liked the Louisville pro-gram. I always wanted to be at Louisville. I am glad they gave me the opportunity.”

Brown joins Fern Creek teammates Jalen Harrington (6-3, 215, DB) and Jamon Brown (6-5, 305, DL) as UofL signees. Moore rushed for more than 1,100 yards and had 25 total touchdowns as a senior.

TWO CARDINAL BURGER BOYSLouisville basketball signees Wayne Black-

shear (a 6-5 guard) and Chane Behanan (a 6-7 power forward) were both named to the McDonald’s All-American game when the rosters were revealed last week.

Behanan, a Bowling Green H.S. (Ky.) prod-uct, will play for the East squad, while Blacks-hear, a Morgan Park H.S. (Chicago) standout, will play for the West. Behanan is rated as a fi ve-star player, the No. 5 PF in the class of 2011, and the No. 23 overall prospect.

Blackshear, who is rated as a four-star player, is the No. 9 shooting guard in the class and No. 32 player overall. The 34th an-nual McDonald’s All-American game will be played March 30 at Chicago’s United Center.

CLINT HURTT NAMED RECRUITER OF THE YEAR

RECRUITING


RECRUITING NOTEBOOK10 AMAZING AND MEMORABLE MOMENTS OF THE 2009-2010 SEASONLOUISVILLE BASKETBALL

By Russ BrownUniversity of Louisville basketball coach

Rick Pitino called it “moving day,” mean-ing that some Big East teams would be go-ing down, some going up -- and when it was over UofL definitely was looking like a team on the rise.

Especially after another gritty, nerve-rattling performance Saturday in the KFC Yum! Center.

On an afternoon when the school hon-ored its 1986 national championship team, the No. 16/15 Cardinals (19-6, 8-4) played like gold for a half, then showed their

mettle late to edge No. 12/13 Syracuse 73-69. The victory continued UofL’s domination of the Orange (20-6, 7-6) on a day that started with a tribute to the glory days under coach Denny Crum and ended with coaches, players and fans alike wondering if

these surprising, determined and resilient Cards are on the brink of returning to those days.

“The fun thing about coaching this bas-ketball team is their hearts and their guts,” Pitino said. “This team keeps fighting, keeps battling ‘til the end.”

The victory enabled UofL to tie George-town for third place in the Big East head-ing into another challenging week that features a trip to Cincinnati Wednesday and a visit by No. 10/9 Connecticut on Fri-day, with a short turnaround of about 48 hours.

“There was a lot at stake,” Pitino said. “I told the guys we had to get Syracuse.”

In beating Syracuse for the seventh time in a row, the Cards -- decked out in retro uniforms, sans the tight shorts, in a bow to the ‘86 champs -- bounced back from an 89-79 overtime loss at Notre Dame last Wednesday.

“We couldn’t dwell on the past,” soph-omore point guard Peyton Siva said after Saturday’s game. “We have to continue to move forward. This game is over and done with, and now we have to concentrate on Cincinnati up next.”

UofL buried Syracuse under an ava-lanche of three-pointers to build a 20-point lead early in the second half, then held on when the Orange sliced its deficit to three twice in the final 1:37.

Call it living on the edge, sometimes by fingernails. It was Louisville’s fourth Big East home game decided by four points or less -- all victories -- and its eighth overall in conference play by five points or less, or overtime (two of those).

“We’re used to close games,” Siva said, matter-of-factly. “Pretty much every (con-ference) game this year has been that way. It shows our character.”

As he had in last year’s upset of the then-No. 1 Orange in Freedom Hall, ju-nior forward Kyle Kuric proved to be an annoying thorn in Syracuse’s side, toss-ing in a game-high 23 points while drill-

ing 5 of 7 three-point shots. He also had five rebounds and four assists. Preston Knowles, bouncing back from a 5-of-17 shooting night at Notre Dame, added 22 points. He hit a career-high seven treys in 12 attempts, including a buzzer-beating 35-footer at the end of the first half that gave the Cards a 40-30 lead.

“We talked about not letting Kuric and Knowles shoot, and those were the two guys we let shoot,” Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim lamented.

Center Terrence Jennings continued his recent uptick with 13 points and seven re-bounds, along with four steals. And soph-omore forward Rakeem Buckles returned after missing 12 games with a broken fin-ger and tied Jennings for team rebounding honors in just 14 minutes.

UofL -- or rather, Knowles and Kuric -- shot holes in Syracuse’s traditional 2-3 zone by hitting 13 of 27 three-point shots. Aside from the K&K guys, the only other Cardinal to hit a trey was Chris Smith, who was was 1 of 5.

UofL has now won its first six league home games for the first time since 1992-93, when it went undefeated (6-0) at home in the Metro Conference. The Cards last began 7-0 in conference home games in 1974-75 (8-0 in the Missouri Valley Conference).

The Cards trailed 26-19 with 5:45 left in the first half when they suddenly got hot, exploding on a 26-4 run that bridged the halves. Six straight points by Jennings, two putbacks and a pair of free throws, sparked a 21-4 surge to close out the first half. Then Knowles and Kuric took over, with Knowles nailing four straight three-pointers in the final 2:18 and Kuric adding one.

“We’re an outstanding shooting team,” Jennings said. “Once our guys get going, they’re pretty hard to stop, especially at home. When we’re hitting on offense and communicating on defense, we’re a tough team to beat.”

Said Siva: “We just started knocking down shots. We have our spurts. We’ve got great shooters, we just need to find them.”

The onslaught continued at the start of the second half, with Jennings scoring five straight points. Then Kuric scored seven straight to cap a 12-4 burst that gave UofL a 57-37 cushion with 15 1/2 minutes re-maining.

The Cards still owned a seemingly com-fortable 64-46 lead at 11:36. It appeared they were going to avoid any late anxious moments for a change.

Syracuse, though, had other ideas. Be-hind the three-point shooting of Brandon

Triche, who scored 14 of his team-best21 points in the second half, the Orangestormed back with a 20-5 run as Triche’sfast-break layup narrowed the gap to 69-66 with 1:37 left.

“It’s hard to play with that kind of lead,” Kuric said. “You try to ice the ball, but youcan’t do that. You’ve got to keep lookingfor shots and keep attacking.”

Said Pitino: “We ran out of gas a little bit and tried to milk the clock, which is akiller. When you play against a zone andyou start milking the clock you begin totake some desperate shots, and that hap-pened a few times.”

UofL, which managed just one field goal in the final 8 1/2 minutes, then putthe game away at the foul line, sinking 4of 6 free throws in the final 28.3 seconds.Scoop Jardine’s three-pointer at 00:6.5brought Syracuse within 72-69 before Si-va’s free throw at 00:5.4 wrapped up thewin.

“We did a good job fighting them and made a great effort to get back in thegame,” said Boeheim, whose team lost forthe sixth time in its last eight outings afterstarting 18-0. “But it’s tough when you’re19 down (20 actually) on the road to comeall the way back. We left too big a hole toget ourselves out of. You can’t get that farbehind.”

Senior Preston Knowles hit seven threes against Syracuse, including one just before the fi rst-half buzzer. Knowles’ seven threes were the most by a Cardinal since Taquan Dean set the school record by going 9 for 12 against VMI on Dec. 23, 2003. - photo by Shelley Feller

C A R D S B E A T ‘ C U S E A G A I N , A D V A N C E I N B I G E A S T

KURIC, KNOWLES DO THE HEAVY LIFTING ON ‘MOVING DAY’

RUSS BROWNRUSS BROWN


RECRUITING NOTEBOOK10 AMAZING AND MEMORABLE MOMENTS OF THE 2009-2010 SEASONLOUISVILLE BASKETBALLLOUISVILLE BASKETBALL

2010-11 WOMEN’S SCHEDULE

DATE OPPONENT SITE TIME RECORD CONF OCTOBER 30 Indiana Wesleyan (Exh) KFC Yum! Center W, 67-42 NOVEMBER 12 Then-No. 2 TENNESSEE KFC Yum! Center L, 63-50 0-114 at Ohio University Athens, Ohio W, 84-47 1-117 HOUSTON BAPTIST KFC Yum! Center W, 100-34 2-1 19 SOUTHEAST MISSOURI STATE KFC Yum! Center W, 97-43 3-123 at Then-No. 4 Xavier Cincinnati, Ohio L, 71-59 3-226 at Old Dominion Norfolk, Va. L, 69-65 3-329 at IPFW Fort Wayne, Ind. W, 100-74 4-3DECEMBER 2 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY STATE KFC Yum! Center W, 96-37 5-35 Then-No. 8 KENTUCKY KFC Yum! Center W, 78-52 6-311 DAYTON KFC Yum! Center W, 69-55 7-315 at Cincinnati Cincinnati, Ohio W, 78-40 8-3 1-018-20 Dual in the Desert Las Vegas, Nev. 18 vs. Marist Las Vegas, Nev. L, 68-74 8-419 vs. Houston Las Vegas, Nev. L, 80-92 8-5 20 vs. No. 21 Nebraska Las Vegas, Nev. W, 65-51 9-528 UT-MARTIN KFC Yum! Center W, 92-67 10-5 JANUARY 4 Then-No. 17 ST. JOHN’S KFC Yum! Center W, 84-73 11-5 2-09 PITTSBURGH KFC Yum! Center W, 79-68 12-5 3-012 at No. 12 Notre Dame South Bend, Ind. L, 80-60 12-6 3-115 at Connecticut Hartford, Conn L, 78-55 12-7 3-222 CINCINNATI KFC Yum! Center W, 83-47 13-7 4-2 26 at Marquette Milwaukee, Wis. L, 76-65 13-8 4-329 RUTGERS KFC Yum! Center W, 56-45 14-8 5-3FEBRUARY 1 GEORGETOWN KFC Yum! Center L, 76-52 14-9 5-46 at Villanova Philadelphia, Pa. W, 64-48 15-9 6-4 13 WEST VIRGINIA KFC Yum! Center W, 57-47 16-9 7-416 at Syracuse Syracuse, NY 7 p.m. 19 at USF Tampa, Fla. 2 p.m.23 DEPAUL KFC Yum! Center 7 p.m. 26 SETON HALL KFC Yum! Center 2 p.m.28 at Providence Providence, RI 7 p.m.MARCH 4-8 Big East Tournament Hartford, Conn. TBA

2010-11 MEN’S SCHEDULE DATE OPPONENT (TELEVISION) SITE TIME/RES RECORD CONF OCTOBER Sun. 31 NORTHERN KENTUCKY / exhibition KFC Yum! Center W, 83-66 -- NOVEMBER Thur. 11 KENTUCKY WESLEYAN / exhibition KFC Yum! Center W, 96-54 -- Tues. 16 BUTLER (ESPN) KFC Yum! Center W, 88-73 1-0 GLOBAL SPORTS SHOOTOUTSat. 20 JACKSON STATE KFC Yum! Center W, 62-45 2-0Mon. 22 CHATTANOOGA KFC Yum! Center W, 106-65 3-0Sat. 27 MARSHALL (ESPN3) KFC Yum! Center W, 80-66 4-0 DECEMBER Wed. 1 FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL (ESPN3) KFC Yum! Center W, 92-55 5-0 in GLOBAL SPORTS SHOOTOUT Sat. 4 SOUTH ALABAMA KFC Yum! Center W, 97-70 6-0 Wed. 8 SAN FRANCISCO (ESPN3) KFC Yum! Center W, 61-35 7-0Sat. 11 UNLV (ESPNU) KFC Yum! Center W, 77-69 8-0 in BILLY MINARDI CLASSIC Tues. 14 DREXEL (ESPNU) KFC Yum! Center L, 52-46 8-1Sat. 18 GARDNER-WEBB (ESPN3) KFC Yum! Center W, 78-49 9-1 Wed. 22 at Western Kentucky Bowling Green, Ky. W, 114-82 10-1Mon. 27 MORGAN STATE KFC Yum! Center W, 104-74 11-1 Fri. 31 KENTUCKY (CBS) KFC Yum! Center L, 78-63 11-2JANUARY Wed. 5 SETON HALL (ESPNU) KFC Yum! Center W, 73-54 12-2 1-0 Sun. 9 at USF Tampa, Fla. W, 86-77 13-2 2-0Wed. 12 at Villanova (ESPN/2) Philadelphia, Pa. L, 88-74 13-3 2-1 Sat. 15 MARQUETTE (ESPN2) KFC Yum! Center W, 71-70 14-3 3-1 Wed. 19 ST. JOHN’S KFC Yum! Center W, 88-63 15-3 4-1 Sat. 22 at Providence (ESPNU) Providence, R.I. L, 72-67 15-4 4-2Wed. 26 WEST VIRGINIA (ESPNU) KFC Yum! Center W, 55-54 16-4 5-2 Sat. 29 at Connecticut Storrs, Conn. W, 79-78 (2OT) 17-4 6-2 Mon. 31 at Georgetown (ESPN) Washington, D.C. L, 62-59 17-5 6-3FEBRUARY Sat. 5 DEPAUL (BEN/WHAS) KFC Yum! Center W, 61-57 18-5 7-3 Wed. 9 at Notre Dame (ESPNU) South Bend, Ind. L, 89-79 18-6 7-4 Sat. 12 SYRACUSE (ESPN/2) KFC Yum! Center W, 73-69 19-6 8-4 Wed. 16 at Cincinnati (ESPN/2) Cincinnati, Ohio 7 p.m. Fri. 18 CONNECTICUT (ESPN) KFC Yum! Center 9 p.m. Tues. 22 at Rutgers (ESPNU) Piscataway, N.J. 9 p.m. Sun. 27 PITTSBURGH (CBS) KFC Yum! Center 2 p.m. MARCH Wed. 2 PROVIDENCE KFC Yum! Center 7 p.m. Sat. 5 at West Virginia (ESPN/2) Morgantown, W. Va. Noon Tues. 8-Sat. 12 Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden New York City

BUCKLES ATTACKING THE BOARDS WHILE SHAKING OFF RUSTBy Russ Brown It had been a long wait for Rakeem Buckles, but

Louisville’s sophomore forward fi nally returned to the basketball court last Saturday against Syracuse and probably performed as well as could be expect-ed given his long absence.

Buckles looked rusty on offense, missing all three of his shots and committing fi ve turnovers. But as he had promised the day before, he focused on rebounding and wound up with seven boards in just 14 minutes during the 73-69 victory.

“I felt good, I had a lot of fun out there,” he said. “It felt good to get back. But I’m nowhere close to where I need to be. I’ve got to get back to where I was before, get better. I felt out of synch a little bit. I just tried to hit the glass and play hard, give it my all. “

Buckles suffered a broken left index fi nger (non-shooting hand) in practice on Dec. 30, the day be-fore the Kentucky game. He had been sidelined for six weeks and 12 games. He had last played in the Dec. 27 win over Morgan State, getting six points and six rebounds in 12 minutes. He leads UofL in rebounding at 7.5 per game and also is averaging 8.0 points.

“He’s good, but he’s rusty,” UofL coach Rick Pi-tino said. “He couldn’t shoot. He’ll get it back in a short period of time.”

The fi ve pins that were inserted into his shat-tered fi nger have been removed, and he wore a protective fi nger sleeve during the game.

Buckles was medically cleared to return to full

practice last Thursday. However, for about two weeks before that he had been doing basketball-related drills without the ball and shooting by tak-ing balls off the rack instead of receiving passes. To stay in shape, he ran sprints and exercised on the treadmill and stationary bicycle.

“Three practices and he’ll be back in terms of cardiovascular,” Pitino said. “Where he’s going to be rusty is ballhandling and shooting. The biggest thing with Rak is how much will he put his left hand up, how much will he use it? You’ve got to get over

those injuries mentally, and it will take some time, but Rak is a different breed of cat, a very tough kid. I was very surprised in individual instruction; he was dunking the ball with both hands, so he’s very, very tough, and he was dying to get back.”

Said Buckles: “Of course, when you’re out there you’re going to think about somebody smacking down hard on your hand or something like that. But I’m just going out there to play and not worry about it.”

Buckles said the worst part of his forced hiatus was watching his teammates lose several close games and feeling he might have been able to help them win.

“It was very hard sitting there watching my team play,” he said. “Every game they would lose I’d be down for a few days, thinking it’s my fault. If I was playing, we would have won that game. That’s the sad part about me being out. I just felt like it was my fault when we lost.”

Before the injury Buckles was ninth in the Big East in rebounding and was shooting 48.5 percent, including 10 of 21 from three-point land.

“I might not be able to knock down shots or do a lot of other things offensively for a while because I’ve been out so long,” he said. “But one thing I can say is I’m going to try to rebound. I’m putting a lot of shots up and trying to get that part of my game back. It will probably take a little while, though.”

Buckles said he has no idea how he broke the fi nger.

“I really can’t tell you what happened, it hap-

pened so fast,” he said. “A couple of weeks before,Bullet (Elisha Justice) had dislocated his fi nger andthey just popped it back, so I was guessing minewas dislocated, too. But that wasn’t the case. I gotan X-ray and they said my fi nger was shattered.”

Buckles didn’t make the trip to South Bend for last Wednesday’s 89-79 overtime loss to NotreDame, but he said he enjoyed watching Kyle Ku-ric’s controversial dunk that earned him a techni-cal foul for allegedly taunting Irish defender ScottMartin.

“I went crazy when I saw that,” Buckles said. “Sorry about his technical foul, but it was a nicedunk. I was very surprised he got a technical.I guess you can’t look at a guy after you dunk. Iguess you’ve got to cover your eyes or something.Kyle wouldn’t say anything. I don’t know what hewould say. When he dunks on people in practice,he never celebrates or anything like that.”

Besides Buckles, 6-10 freshman center Gorgui Dieng also was available for the Syracuse gameafter missing four games with a concussion. ButDieng didn’t play against the Orange.

“Gorgui isn’t in shape to play yet,” Pitino said. “Obviously, both Rakeem and Gorgui are in needof conditioning, as well as timing and execution,but it’s great to have them back. It makes practicesmore competitive, and now we can start trying toimprove as a basketball team with a full comple-ment of players. It’s fun to have a full complementbecause you can do things you weren’t able to dobefore.”

Sophomore Rakeem Buckles started against Syracuse. It was his fi rst game-action since Dec.

27. He broke a fi nger on his non-shooting handthe day before the Kentucky game on Dec. 31

and has been out of the lineup ever since.- photo by Shelley Feller


10 AMAZING AND MEMORABLE MOMENTS OF THE 2009-2010 SEASON10 AMAZING AND MEMORABLE MOMENTS OF THE 2009-2010 SEASONLOUISVILLE BASKETBALL

By Russ BrownSOUTH BEND, Ind. -- In its 89-79 over-

time loss at Notre Dame last Wednesday, Louisville provided a preview of what its restructured offense is going to look like now that the Cardinals are approaching full strength.

Coach Rick Pitino put aside the pick-and-roll offense UofL had primarily relied on through two-thirds of the season in favor of a pure motion attack he hopes will serve his team well down the stretch and into post-

season play.Motion offenses em-

phasize player move-ment, often as a strategy to exploit the quickness of the offensive team or to neutralize a size ad-vantage of the defense. Motion offenses follow no fi xed repeating pat-

tern. Instead, they are free-fl owing -- within a set of rules. Some examples of basic rules that are commonly used are:

Pass and screen away: Players pass to one side of the court and seek to screen for play-ers on the opposite side of the court. The hope is to create spacing and driving lanes to basket.

Back screen: Players in the key seek to screen players on the wing and open them up for cuts to the basket.

Flare screen: Player without the ball on the perimeter seeks to set a screen (usually near the elbow area of the lane) for another player without the ball.

Against Notre Dame’s man-to-man de-fense the new offense produced mixed re-sults but showed promise.

Unveiling a pure motion attack for the fi rst time this season, No. 16/15 UofL (18-6, 7-4) shot a blistering 56.3 percent in the fi rst half, including 5 of 10 from three-point range, and generated 14 assists on 18 fi eld goals.

“You look at the shooting percentage (in the fi rst half), the number of assists, fast breaks, everything, that was poetry in mo-tion,” Pitino said. “The second half wasn’t bad, wasn’t good, very average.”

In the second half and overtime UofL tailed off to 11-of-24 shooting overall (45.8 percent), 3 of 9 from beyond the arc, with only fi ve assists. Overtime was a disaster, with the Cards failing to score on their fi rst fi ve possessions while falling behind 88-74.

“We shot too quick, we didn’t create a high number of assists, we went one-on-one too early, we didn’t go inside enough at crucial times,” Pitino said of the second half and OT.

Pitino said his team had been working on the new offense for about two weeks

prior to the Notre Dame game and that he had hoped to use it almost from the start of the season. But he had to delay its debut because of the multiple injuries that left the Cards shorthanded.

“The motion offense is like a pressing de-fense,” he said. “It will fatigue you because you’re always moving, so you can’t press and run motion unless you have a full com-plement of players you can freely substitute. Like anything else, it has its pluses, but the minus is if you don’t have a good bench you can’t run motion or press. The benefi t is it’s much more diffi cult to scout, more diffi cult to defend. I think the motion is going to be great for us.”

The scheme appears to be a hit with the players, who used a variation of it again Saturday to shred Syracuse’s 2-3 zone in a 73-69 victory.

“It’s really just playing basketball,” point guard Peyton Siva said. “There’s no set play, just everybody moving without the ball. It gets everybody open shots. TJ (Terrence Jen-nings) gets a lot of touches, and Kyle (Ku-ric) and PK (Preston Knowles) get a lot of spot-up threes. It helps out everybody of-fensively.”

Said Knowles, “When you’re constantly screening like that, you’re going to end up getting open looks.”

Pitino said it should benefi t Jennings and Kuric the most, and the results of the past two games bear out that opinion. Kuric has posted the fi rst back-to-back 20-point games of his college career against the Irish and Orange, scoring 51 points and hitting 18 of 29 shots (62.0 percent), while Jen-nings has scored 27 points and made 12 of 20 shots.

Pitino said Jennings was initially skeptical of his role in the motion offense.

“Although TJ didn’t believe it would help him, it will help him immensely,” Pitino said. “Terrence was the only one fi ghting against it because he doesn’t like setting screens. But in basketball the screener is more often open than the guy he is screening for. The screener is the most dangerous guy on the court. Even though Terrence is old, he still has to learn that. And he no longer gets the ball being pushed out of the lane; he catch-es the ball in the middle of the lane.”

THIS CLOSE ONE GOT AWAYLouisville has been unbeatable in close

Big East games at home but hasn’t been as fortunate on the road, and No. 8 Notre Dame (20-4, 9-3) handed the Cards another disappointing setback -- their third in the last four games away from the KFC Yum! Center by fi ve points or less, or in OT.

The hard-fought battle featured 13 ties and 10 lead changes, the majority of them in the second half when the biggest lead for either team was Notre Dame’s 55-50 edge at the 13:45 mark. In the end, though, even Kuric’s career-high 28 points weren’t enough to save UofL.

Kuric, playing a team-high 43 of the 45 minutes, turned in his best all-around performance as a Cardinal, getting six re-bounds, a steal, an assist and committing just one turnover while also hitting 4 of 7 three-point shots.

After Tyrone Nash’s two free throws tied the score at 74 with 1:02 left in regulation, UofL had two chances to win it in the fi -nal 26 seconds. But two contested treys by Knowles -- the fi rst as the shot clock was expiring and the other at the buzzer --

missed.“I got two good looks,” Knowles said. “I

thought they were both going in.”Tim Abromaitis, who was guarding

Knowles on the last shot, said: “He almostput it in with me right in his face. I was kindof fortunate it bounced out because he’sa great shooter and he made some toughones.”

UofL’s last chance in regulation started with 25.6 seconds on the clock. After a tim-eout by Pitino, Notre Dame coach Mike Breyswitched to a 2-3 zone, and that causedjust enough confusion to prevent the Cardsfrom getting a better shot.

“We kind of changed on the fl y, and that changed their rhythm a little bit and forceda tough shot,” Brey said.

“That’s a heck of a Coach Brey call,” Irish senior guard Ben Hansbrough said. “Thatwas big for us.”

The Irish then seemed to switch gears to a higher intensity and energy level and dom-inated the overtime. Notre Dame convertedall seven of its possessions and scored thefi rst 14 points in the extra session, with se-nior forward Carleton Scott getting nine ofhis 16 points during the decisive surge.

“We just came out and took it,” Scott said. “We had to let it all hang out and gofor it.”

“The ball just seemed to bounce their way at the end,” Siva said. “We tried to gutit out, but we couldn’t tonight and cameup short.”

As usual, Hansbrough and Abromaitis were the big guns for Notre Dame, whichwon its sixth straight and improved to 15-0at the Joyce Center. Hansbrough scored25 points on 9-of-17 shooting (5 of 10 onthrees), and Abromaitis added 23 points,going 6 of 13 from the fi eld and 9 of 9 atthe foul line.

“That was a great basketball game,” Pi-tino said. “We played as intelligent as wecan play in the fi rst half. In the second halfwe broke the offense and tried to go toomuch one-on-one. That was our demise,along with certain things defensively wedidn’t do correctly. I think we fatigued a lit-tle bit in the overtime. But I’m real proud ofour guys because Notre Dame is one of thepremier teams in the country and we wenton the road and lost in overtime.”

Notre Dame’s 20-4 start is the best in 11 seasons under Brey and the earliest in thecalendar year they have recorded 20 winsin the history of a program that has beenaround for more than 100 years. After rout-ing South Florida 78-55 in Tampa last Sat-urday, the Irish -- picked to fi nish seventhin the Big East -- are alone in second placeat 10-3.

Louisville coach Rick Pitino said he loved the way his team ran

its offense during regulation against Notre Dame. “You look at

the shooting percentage (in the fi rst half), the number of assists, fast breaks, everything, that was

poetry in motion,” Pitino said. The Cardinals’ coach wasn’t nearly as

pleased with Louisville’s execution in the overtime period, however.

- photo by Shelley Feller

C A R D S F A L L T O N O T R E D A M E I N O V E R T I M E

PITINO SECONDS THE MOTION ON REVAMPED OFFENSE



Whew, I’m glad that’s over. Not the win-

try weather that has plagued our commu-

nity the past two months, but the plague

of recruiting mania that sends usually level-

headed college football fans into a frenzy.

The emotional roller-coaster of waiting and

anticipating the whims of an 18-year-old

high school senior is more than I can stand.

For that reason I now pledge to not get ex-

cited about future recruits until they are on

campus and producing on the football field

for the Cardinals. Yeah, and there won’t be

any snowy weather next January and Febru-

ary, either.

What made my anxiety

around this year’s recruit-

ing period worse than

previous seasons was

the early commitments

of some top players to

UofL. The better the po-

tential recruit, the great-

er the anxiety and stress. In spite of having

the best recruiting class in school history,

the most prevalent emotion was disap-

pointment over losing two local standouts.

Never mind that not one recruit has taken

the field in college, and as fans we have

no idea how they will perform when they

do, the important thing is that UofL coach

Charlie Strong and his staff have brought in

good high school players. Whether or not

they develop is still an unknown, but so far,

so good. Outstanding high school players

are more likely to develop into outstanding

college players.

Just how good are the 2011 UofL foot-

ball recruits? Without a doubt, if these

players all report on campus it will be the

best group of recruits in the history of UofL

football. The ability of this class is not based

on rankings or guesswork but on analysis of

game film of the future Cardinals, mostly

against highly ranked teams, not inferior

competition. Over the past several years

Howie Lindsey, Jason Coffee, Jeff Wafford,

Matt Willinger, Michael Johnston and I have

watched film of all the classes, and this one

tops the list.

We no longer put much stock in stars and

40-yard sprint times, we watch the player in

person and on film. A good example of one

player recruited by Louisville who is under-

rated is DeVante Parker from Louisville Bal-

lard. He is rated at three stars by both ma-

jor recruiting Web sites, but based on our

observation of his on-field performance

he was one of the most talented wide re-

ceivers in the country. He did well against

all competition but was especially effec-

tive playing the top Louisville high school

teams -- Trinity, Male and St. Xavier -- gain-

ing more than 150 receiving yards against

each, with 209 and a touchdown against

6A state champion Trinity.

The key to high ranking and multiple

stars is to do well at camps and combines,

but because of his participation in other

sports Parker missed those opportunities

and was unseen by rating services.

Not only do some of the recruits appear

underrated based on our observation, sev-

eral are considered “sleepers” by our staff

and various recruiting services. Ryan Mack

from Memphis was named one of the top

five “sleepers” in the 2011 class by Rivals.

com. A “sleeper” is a player who has not

reached his potential and has much room

for maturity and improvement. Other

“sleepers” include John Miller, an offensive

tackle from Miami; strong safety/linebacker

Jalen Harrington from Fern Creek; and De-

iontrez Mount, a 6-5, 205-pound defensive

end from Ft. Walton Beach, Fla., with lots

of room to grow.

Another factor that impressed our staff

is that every Louisville recruit was offered

a scholarship by another BCS school. In the

past Louisville would be competing against

non-BCS schools and usually would lose

out on a player if he was offered by an SEC

or other perennially ranked university. Every

recruit in this class had offers from other

BCS schools, and in some cases Louisville

beat out such programs as South Carolina,

Miami, Florida, Florida State, Nebraska and

Tennessee.

When asked about recruiting against the

“big boys,” Strong bristled at the thought

that Louisville couldn’t go against the top

schools and recruit the best players. He

wants to create the perception that UofL

also is a “big boy” and that high school

stars should dream of coming here. As an

indication that Strong and his assistants will

not settle for less than the best, when some

late recruits didn’t pan out they didn’t turn

to less-skilled players and offer them schol-

arships. There are no 2-star players in this

recruiting class except kicker John Wallace,

the normal ranking for all kickers.

Last year, when Strong got a late start to

recruiting after being hired in December, he

brought in fi ve 2-star recruits. In 2009 there

were 15 2-stars, in 2008 10 2-stars, in 2007

three 2-stars, in 2006 six 2-stars, and in 2005

13 2-stars. This will be the fi rst UofL class

since stars were rewarded without a 2-star at

any position but kicker.

Louisville’s No. 30 national ranking by

Rivals.com is a little misleading. With only

20 recruits (now 21), UofL’s total points

are not indicative of the strength of this

class. In terms of star ranking (UofL’s aver-

age is 3.16), the Cards rank 21st, ahead

of such “big-time” schools as Michigan

State, TCU, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech and

Penn State.

With this coaching staff’s ability to

“coach up” young players, the future

looks bright for UofL football.

YOU CAN LET OUT YOUR AIR – AND SMILE – NOW THAT RECRUITING SEASON IS OVER

COMMENTARY BY JACK COFFEE [email protected]

Only President’s Award Winner in Greater Louisville 10 out of 11 years!

448-2802www.bobmontgomery.com

Top 10 Certified Used Car Dealer in the Nation

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5340 Wide Wide Dixie Highway

BOB MONTGOM E RY HAS BE E N S E RVI NG TH E COM M U N IT Y S I NCE 1960 .

JACK COFFEEJACK COFFEE


BIG EAST FOOTBALL RECRUITING

It’s Valentine’s Day, and we’re in love with the way this UofL basketball team is playing. It doesn’t have the most talent we’ve ever seen on a UofL team - in fact it probably wouldn’t rank in the top 10

in the last 30 years - but these Cardinals hustle, they have heart and they are excelling in the toughest conference in the nation. Rick Pitino said it best Saturday when he said this team’s greatest strength is its ability to put aside ego and play for the name on the front of the jersey (Louisville) rather than the name on the back (a player’s last name). “The fun thing about coaching this basketball team is their heart and their guts,” he said, adding that this team reminds him of the 1987 Providence team he led to the Final Four. We’re not going to get our hopes up for a similar run this year, but the Cardinals are one of a small handful of teams to have fi ve victories over RPI top-25 teams this season.

Speaking of love, we loved seeing the Cardinals trot out the old dunking Cardinal-bird logo on their shorts on Saturday. UofL played Saturday’s game in uniforms replicating the ones the 1985-86 team

wore during its championship season. The uniforms, designed and made by adidas, had the familiar red and black striping around the arms, neck and bottom of the shorts, and they had the players’ names on the back in old-style lettering. Even the warm-ups and the team ball boys got into the act with old-style T-shirts. Even the student section joined in by going retro in their dress. We liked the look back in time at fashion, and it really didn’t bother us a bit that none of the players opted for the short shorts of the 1980s. Today’s longer shorts are just fi ne.

Syracuse’s famous 2-3 zone typically produces UGLY games by its opponents. The Orange had been holding opponents to just 38 percent shooting before Saturday’s game against Louisville. But Louisville hit 13 of 27 threes (48.1 percent) and bombed the Orange

from outside. “It all starts with ball movement,” Pitino said. “The thing that was missing -- we had ball movement, we had player movement, we had inside-to-out action -- we didn’t have enough dribble penetration. You can’t get good shots against Syracuse unless you dribble penetrate. We did in the fi rst half, in the second half we fatigued. We didn’t space quite as well, but we’re a good shooting team. We play well against zones. Our guys have no conscience at all, whatsoever, as long as they take good shots, that’s the main thing.” Pitino’s UofL teams now have beaten Syracuse seven straight times. That’s an amazing streak considering the Orange has been ranked in the top 25 for most of the last fi ve seasons and was No. 1 just last year.

As good as Louisville looked at times Saturday, the Cardinals played pitifully in overtime at Notre Dame just three days earlier. UofL played extremely well for the fi rst 38 minutes of that game, then seemed to completely disregard the game plan in the fi nal two

minutes of regulation and the full fi ve minutes of overtime. It was as confused and scattered as Louisville has looked all season. Hopefully, we won’t see that version of this team again this season.

Speaking of the Notre Dame game, by now it has been hashed and rehashed over and over, but we must mention the worst technical-foul call we’ve seen in a long time. Just before halftime Kyle Kuric was whistled for a technical after he slammed home an amazing dunk on

top of 6-foot-7 Scott Martin’s head. The technical, assessed by offi cial Pat Driscoll, provided Notre Dame two free points (Tim Abromaitis hit both free throws), and the Cardinals went into the locker room up 44-40. Notre Dame ended up coming back and tying the score to send it to overtime, where it won going away. But back to the technical. Driscoll told Pitino that Kuric was talking smack to Martin after the dunk. “Impossible,” Pitino exclaimed. “You see guys pounding their chests, pulling their uniforms out, and Kyle Kuric is the antithesis of all of that.” In fact, Pitino said he frequently has to scold Kuric for not talking enough while on the court - and that is to his own team, much less an opponent.

After Saturday’s game, we asked Kuric when was the last time he was whistled for a technical before the one he unjustly received at Notre Dame. “Um, good question,” he said with a laugh. “I think the last one was in sixth grade. I can’t even remember one in high

school.” Kuric is so far from being that type of boastful player that it makes the technical foul even more ridiculous. Later Driscoll admitted to Pitino that he didn’t see Kuric say anything (of couse he didn’t, he ran in from the three-point line behind the play, but that is beside the point), but said that Kuric made a gesture. What? Driscoll just completely made that up. Not only did Kuric not say anything, he also didn’t

move. In fact, he froze and looked down as he was landing, pausing there for only a second before running back down the court. Our favorite comment was from Mark Ennis, who wrote, “It’s the fi rst time I can remember a player getting whistled for a technical just for being awesome.” So true.

We actually aren’t as bothered by the ignorant technical as we are about the ESPN coverage of the dunk (and the game, too). The commentating crew of former Indiana coach Bobby Knight and former Notre Dame coach Digger Phelps went on and on and on about Kuric’s

lack of poise and his “idiotic gesture” after the dunk. Knight, in particular, continued to bring up the incident even into the second half. He apparently has a particular thing against players being showy or acting up on the court, and he used the Kuric dunk as his platform to express his frustration. There are so many problems with the things he was saying we’re not sure where to begin. We’ll number a few of them. 1. Knight’s telling anyone, much less a respectful person like Kuric, how to act on the basketball court is ludicrous. This is the man who was tossed out of several college games for inappropriate language or gestures, including once famously tossing a chair across the court after he was upset at an offi cial. This is the man who has been accused of choking and punching players. We’re not talking about personal indiscretions - we’re talking about actions on the court. 2. Knight’s calling anyone “idiotic,” much less an honors student like Kuric, is maddening. Knight was once banned from an entire territory (Puerto Rico) for his own ignorant behavior. 3. For the techs and producers working that game for ESPN not to stop Knight and Phelps from droning on and on about the incident without pointing out to them that they were wrong with their own video evidence is inexcusable.

We believe that Knight and Phelps owe Kuric an apology. Both of them continued to impugn Kuric on national TV despite easy-to-see video evidence proving their comments wrong. Both of them blathered on about Kuric’s lack of class and ignorance despite the video screens

to the left and right of them showing exactly what happened on the play. They should be forced to apologize on the air. The trouble is - GOOD luck getting Knight to apologize for ANYTHING, much less his ignorant comments. Heck, our own Russ Brown long ago stopped waiting for any kind of an apology after Knight shot a blank from a starter’s pistol at him in 1980 while Brown was the Indiana beat writer for The Courier-Journal. That was 31 years ago. Here’s the trouble. Knight and Phelps attached words like “idiotic,” “out of control” and “show boat” to Kuric on national TV. Thousands of people heard those comments and now think of Kuric differently because of them. Kuric, defenseless from the verbal attack, is now maligned, and the least ESPN could do is apologize for being wrong. We urge that Louisville fans who believe Kuric is owed an apology from Knight and Phelps e-mail ESPN public relations at [email protected].

It was GOOD to see coach Charlie Strong land another of the city’s top players Friday afternoon when Fern Creek’s Jerrell Moore signed with the Cardinals. Moore had been committed to Louisville for more than a year when, in January, the Cardinals seemed to move in a different direction, leading Moore to look elsewhere. He started getting calls from Illinois, Kentucky, Western Kentucky, Central Florida and many others. But when Louisville’s class started winding down, the Cards called Moore back and made sure he knew that he had a full scholarship with the Cardinals if he wanted it. In the end, he did. Despite pressure from some misguided local sources who wanted him to commit to Central Florida, Moore chose to stick with his heart and picked Louisville. He and teammates Jamon Brown and Jalen Harrington, both UofL signees, are three of the top fi ve players in the city for 2011 (the other two being Seneca quarterback DaMarcus Smith, who chose UCF, and Eastern tight end Jon Davis, who chose Illinois). Moore is expected to contribute immediately on punt and kick returns. He has eight touchdowns on punt and kick returns in his high school career. Last season he rushed for 1,100 yards and 12 touchdowns, caught passes for 350 yards and fi ve TDs and threw for 200 yards and two TDs.

UGLY

BAD

UGLY

GOOD

BAD

GOOD

GOOD

C O M M E N T A R Y B Y H O W I E L I N D S E Y

GOOD

SIMPLY STUPIDNew York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez is mad at the Fox broadcasting crew for showing him and girlfriend

Cameron Diaz on the Super Bowl broadcast. But it wasn’t just them sitting in their seats in a luxury box. The camera happened to catch the moment when Diaz was feeding popcorn to A-Rod on camera. Rodriguez was reportedly livid. “He really went ballistic — thinking the cameraman was out to get them in a paparazzi-like shot,” said the Chicago Sun-Times. “How stupid.” What an odd-ball A-Rod is.

TWEET OF THE WEEK@howielindsey (Howie Lindsey of Louisville SportsReport)Louisville is now 5-3 vs. RPI Top 25 teams. Kentucky is 2-4 vs. RPI Top 25 teams. Louisville has 5 wins against NCAA teams since loss to UK

BAD

Louisville signees Jamon Brown, Jerrell Moore and Jalen Harrington posed for the camera at Moore’s signing ceremony

at Fern Creek High Friday. All three players will enroll at Louisville this summer. - photo by Jason Coffee


LOUSIVILLE BASKETBALL

By Jack CoffeeI really enjoy it when the University of Louiv-

ille recognizes its championship teams. I’m a sentimentalist, and I like nostalgia. Check out the CD holder in my car and you won’t fi nd any songs more current than 1965, and you especially won’t fi nd a Beatles album because they destroyed Rock ‘n’ Roll. But that’s anoth-er article for a different magazine.

It was a lot of fun seeing the 1986 UofL team on the 25th anniversary of its champion-ship season. And don’t tell me some of those guys look like they could still play -- like all of us, they are getting old.

People like to say, including 1986 star Milt Wagner, that the 1983 team that lost to Hous-ton in Albuquerque was the best UofL team ever, but I don’t go along. I think the 1986 na-tional championship team was the best based on the second-half of the season. After losing to North Carolina State on Feb. 8 in Raleigh, the Cards reeled off 17 straight wins to be-come champions. During that winning streak they defeated six teams ranked in the top 20, including No. 1 Duke in the title game. In eight post-season games only two opponents played them closer than eight points, includ-ing the three-point victory over Duke, a team that came into the game with a 37-2 record.

The Cards suffered seven losses in the fi rst half of the season, including 69-64 at Ken-tucky in the third game of the renewed se-ries. They also started the season with losses in the pre-season NIT to No. 5 Kansas and No. 18 St. John’s after defeating Miami of Ohio and Tulsa. After losing for the second time to Kansas on Jan. 25, the Cards had an inaus-picious 11-6 record. But after defeating No. 15 Virginia Tech in Blacksburg on Feb. 10, the Cards never looked back. After playing nine top-20 teams in the regular season, UofL was ready for tournament time and breezed until the championship game.

Led by seniors Milt Wagner, Jeff Hall and Billy Thompson, they were always steady, nev-er panicked, and with sophomore Herb Crook adding toughness and freshman Pervis Ellison guarding the basket, they played a tough man-to-man defense.

Fifth-year senior Wagner was the informal leader and led the team in assists and steals and was second in scoring at 14.8 ppg. He would fi nish the season with 165 assists, fourth all-time at UofL for a season.

Thompson was the leading scorer at 14.9 ppg. After exasperating Cardinals fans for most of his career, he was a much improved

player his senior year and played with an intensity unseen in previous years. His .576 shooting percentage was one of the best in school history for a non-center and was a .66 percentage point improvement over the pre-vious season. He was also a good rebounder and ended his career eighth all-time at UofL with 930 rebounds.

Hall, who averaged 10.3 ppg, was an out-standing shooter and perfect complement to Wagner at the No. 2 guard spot. Unfortu-nately for Hall, the three-point shot had not been introduced or he would have set many UofL records. His .887 free-throw percent-age for 1985-86 ranks fi fth in school history. That season Wagner shot .862 from the line, making Louisville one of the best free-throw-shooting teams in the country.

The key to the improvement of this group was the addition of Ellison (13.1 ppg). Per-vis was an outstanding rebounder and shot blocker and led the team in both categories (8.2 rpg and 2.4 blocks per game). He im-proved tremendously during the season, was named MVP of the Final Four and earned the nickname “Never Nervous Pervis.”

Crook, a local player from Eastern High School, had an excellent year and joined the other starters with a double-fi gure average (11.8 ppg). His quickness and shooting ability made him diffi cult to guard, and his wisp of a build caused many a foe to underestimate his strength.

The 1986 team had an excellent bench, with three players who had started games in previous seasons -- Mike Abrams, Mark Mc-Swain and Chris West. Also off the bench were Robbie Valentine, Tony Kimbro, Kenny Payne, Kevin Walls and crowd favorite Will Ol-liges. Two of those subs -- Kimbro and Payne -- would be future 1,000-point scorers for the Cards, joining all fi ve starters in the club.

There were several factors that came to-gether to make this team successful: Wagner was injured the second game of his senior year in 1984 and was granted a medical red-shirt that allowed him to play the following season; Barry Sumpter, the starting center in 1984-85, was ruled academically ineligible; McSwain refused to enter a game and was sent to the locker room by coach Denny Crum during the season; and Kevin Walls quit the team and returned home to Camden, N. J., but later rejoined the team.

In spite of the turmoil, the 1985-86 UofL Cards won it all, the school’s second national title. It was great fun then, and a joy to recall.

By Russ BrownJeff Hall called it “an unbelievable run.”He was referring, of course, to Louisville’s

17-game winning streak that culminated in the 1986 national championship, the school’s second, fi rst since 1980 and its last at this point.

Hard to believe that at one point during the 1985-86 season the Cardinals were a very average 11-6, although all but one of the losses had come against teams ranked in the top 20. And who could have guessed that UofL’s 76-64 loss at North Carolina State on Feb. 8 would be its last of the season?

The Cards then went on the run to which Hall referred and didn’t stop until they had beaten top-ranked Duke 72-69 in the NCAA fi nal in Reunion Arena in Dallas.

Hall, now a high school basketball coach in Glasgow, Ky., and many of his 1986 team-mates were in town Saturday to celebrate the silver anniversary of their champion-ship and be honored during an autograph session and halftime ceremony in the KFC Yum! Center.

Speaking to the crowd of 22,755 on hand to watch UofL defeat Syracuse 73-69, Billy Thompson said the loss to N.C. State created a new resolve among the players.

“We knew the rest of the season couldn’t go on that way,” he said. “We felt we were destined to win the championship. We had even talked in the locker room before the season that we felt it was ours to win.”

Said Hall: “At that point, we started turn-ing it around. That’s what I call getting on a roll.”

UofL fi nished with a 32-7 record, and its title was its sixth Final Four appearance under coach Denny Crum. But the Cards have been to only one Final Four since -- in 2005.

Thompson, now a minister in Florida, said the chemistry on the ‘86 team was similar to that of the current club.

“We were tight,” he said.”That’s how you win championships. Nobody was self-ish. It wasn’t about me going to get 20 points, or anyone else. None of the players did that.”

The balanced scoring showed that. Five players averaged in double fi gures, with Thompson’s 14.9 leading the way.

Hall said the key to Louisville’s success was the return of guard Milt Wagner from a bro-ken foot and the addition of 6-9 freshman center Pervis Ellison, whose smooth, unfl ap-pable demeanor earned him the nickname “Never Nervous Pervis,” and whose play earned him the Final Four Most Outstanding Player Award. Ellison, only the second fresh-

man in NCAA history to win the award, had 25 points and 11 rebounds against Duke.

However, Ellison was among fi ve players who didn’t make it back for the celebra-tion, although he had told UofL offi cials he would be fl ying into town Friday night. Also missing were Wagner, Kenny Payne, Mark McSwain and Avery Marshall. Payne (a Ken-tucky assistant coach) and Wagner (Auburn assistant) were with their respective teams for games. McSwain lives in Europe, and Marshall had a prior commitment.

On the coaching side, Crum was joined by former assistants Wade Houston and Jerry Jones, trainer Jerry May and assistant trainer Sherry Brown.

The ‘86 team featured four players who still rank among the top 11 scorers all-time at UofL: Ellison (3rd, 2,143 points), Wagner (5th, 1,836), Herbert Crook (9th, 1,723) and Thompson (11th, 1,685).

“It was a great year,” Crook said. “We had so much fun, and the guys got along so well. It was a great team. We had a great freshman, senior leadership, and we jelled at the right time.”

Crum has said, only half-jokingly, that with shooters like Hall, Wagner and Kimbro, if the three-point shot had been in effect in 1986 (it started in 1987) the NCAA could have simply mailed the trophy to Louisville before the tournament.

“I couldn’t guarantee the title, but we would have made our fair share of threes, I’ll tell you that,” Hall said.

Without the benefi t of the three-point-er, Hall said the trio of Wagner, Ellison and Thompson deserve the most credit for UofL’s championship.

“I think the reason for the slow start was that Milt was still trying to get into shape, still working to get back,” Hall said. “But once he got into stride, we just jumped on his back and Pervis’ back and kind of rode it out. When you’ve got Millt, Pervis and Billy, that’s a lot of talent to deal with. That’s a tough threesome. We kept getting better each day.”

PITINO RECALLS PERVISPitino coached Ellison when Pervis was

with the Boston Celtics and battling knee problems that limited his effectiveness, and ultimately ended his career.

“Pervis is a great guy,” Pitino said. “I coached him at a different juncture of his life. He was just looking to cash his next paycheck, hoping I would not put him in the game. We had a great relationship. I told him to stretch on the sideline, make it look good and go cash that paycheck.”

CEREMONY HONORING 1986 TITLE TEAM

BROUGHT BACK A LOT OF FOND MEMORIESUOFL, FANS HONOR THEIR 1986 TEAM OF DESTINY


LOUISVILLE BASKETBALL - 1986 TEAM REUNION PHOTO GALLERY

Former coach Denny Crum was hailed with a huge ovation from the capacity crowd at Saturday’s Louisville-Syracuse game. Crum, a Hall of Famer, led Louisville to two national championships and fi ve Final Fours. - photo by Dave Klotz

A closeup of Will Olliges’ ring as he signed one of the several thousand posters that were printed to commemorate the silver

anniversary of Louisville’s NCAA Tournament championship. - photo by Shelley Feller

More than 500 fans fi led through lines to get theirposters autographed by members of the 1986 national

championship team. - photo by Sheller Feller

The 1986 team signed autographs for fans and posed for pictures before the game at the

Woodford Reserve Lounge on the main level of the Yum! Center. - photo by Shelley Feller

Members of the 1986 NCAA Championship team were honored at midcourt during a halftime ceremony Saturday at the KFC Yum! Center. Those Cards

are Louisville’s last team champion in any NCAA sport. - photo by Dave Klotz


Old teammates Jeff Hall and Tony Kimbro joked with each other prior to the pair’s announcement during a halftime ceremony Saturday. Hall

and Kimbro were two of seven 1,000 point scorers on the 1986 national championship team. - photo by Shelley Feller

Former UofL great Herb Crook, a Louisville native, received a loud ovation from the fans as he was

introduced Saturday during a ceremony honoring the 1986 national champions. - photo by Shelley Feller


CARDINAL FOOTBALL - SIGNING DAY RECAP


BASKETBALL PREVIEW VS. CINCINNATI

By Rick CushingAfter starting the season 15-0 and climbing into the top 25

for the fi rst time in years, Cincinnati has gone 4-6, losing 59-57 to St. John’s at home last Sunday. Unless the Bearcats mount a late-season surge, which has not been the case in recent years, they are in danger of missing the NCAA Tournament for the sixth year in a row.

The Bearcats’ 15-0 start was a mirage, based largely on a ridiculously weak out-of-conference schedule. They capped the run by opening Big East play with home victories against bottom-feeders DePaul and Seton Hall before reality stepped in. They have yet to beat a ranked team this season. If that trend continues, the Bearcats are in trouble, because starting with UofL Wednesday they’ll close out the season with four of their fi nal six games against ranked teams (UofL, UConn and George-town twice), and the other two are at dangerous Providence and at Marquette. Four of those six games are on the road. The Bearcats, now 6-6 in conference play, need to close the season 4-2 to assure a spot in the NCAA tourney. They are a much better team at home, where they are 13-2, their only other homecourt loss coming to West Virginia, 66-55, two weeks ago.

UC coach Mick Cronin, a former UofL assistant, vowed before the season that the Bearcats would be “mentally tougher and more focused.” They’ll get a chance to show whether that’s true in their season-ending six-game stretch. If it’s not true, the UC fan base will be howling for Cronin to focus on fi nding a new job.

Last season UC lost fi ve of its last six regular-season games.

COACHCronin was an assistant coach at Cincinnati under Huggins

from 1998-2001, then an assistant at UofL under Rick Pitino for two seasons (2001-03) before taking the head coaching job at Murray State, which he led to the NCAA Tournament twice in three seasons. This is his fi fth season at Cincinnati, where he’s 80-74. Overall he’s 149-97.

GUARDSDion Dixon, a 6-3 junior, leads the Bearcats in scoring at 11.5

ppg and is fi fth in rebounding at 3.1 rpg. He’s shooting just 40.2 percent overall but is at a more respectable 34.1 percent from three-point range.

Cashmere Wright, a 6-0 sophomore, runs the point and leads the team in assists (3.9 a game) and in steals with 33. He is averaging 9.3 ppg, fourth on the team, and is shooting 44.7 percent overall and a good 41.3 percent on treys. He had 12 points in a 68-60 regular-season loss at UofL last year, then got just three points when UC beat the Cards 69-66 in the Big East Tournament.

Sean Kilpatrick, a 6-4 freshman, has started just one game but is averaging 9.9 ppg, third on the team, and 3.2 rpg, fourth on the team, while playing just 20 minutes a game. He’s shoot-ing 43.5 percent overall, 39.3 percent from three-point range. He’s led the team in scoring in fi ve games, including with 15 against St. John’s, and has seen his playing time increase as the season progressed. Larry Davis, a 6-3 senior, also sees consider-able playing time and is averaging 5.8 ppg.

BIG MENYancy Gates, a 6-9 junior, is averaging 10.8 ppg, second on

the team, and leads in rebounding at 6.5 rpg and in blocked

shots with 30. His effort has been questioned by Cronin, how-ever, and he was suspended for one game (against Pitt) two weeks ago, although he returned to play 16 minutes (fi ve points, three rebounds) in a 71-68 victory over DePaul last week. He then played just 13 minutes against St. John’s (0 points, three rebounds) and could be seen sulking on the bench in the late going, not even bothering to participate in a team huddle in the fi nal minute. Asked about Gates after the game, Cronin said: “I played the guys who give the Cincinnati Bearcats the best chance to win. That is the best answer I can give you and it’s the only answer.” As to Gates’ status for the UofL game, Cronin said, “I’m not really in the mood to talk about that right now.” Gates is shooting 49.1 percent overall but is just 1 for 10 on treys. He’s also a poor free-throw shooter at 48 percent. He had 12 points and fi ve rebounds against UofL in the regular season last year, then got 16 points and fi ve rebounds against the Cards in the Big East Tournament.

Ibrahima Thomas, a 6-11 senior, is averaging 6.3 ppg, sixth on the team, and 5.9 rpg, second on the team. He’s shooting 47.2 percent overall but has made just 3 of 24 treys. He’s an-other weak free-throw shooter at 57.4 percent, and he’s blocked just 15 shots.

Rashad Bishop, a 6-6 senior who is the other starting front-court player, is averaging 7.8 ppg, fi fth on the team, and 3.5 rpg, fourth. He’s shooting just 37.6 percent overall, 33.3 percent on treys.

Darnell Wilks, a 6-7 senior who is the top sub up front, is averaging 3.7 ppg, 2.8 rpg. He’s shooting 41.2 percent overall, just 21.7 percent on treys. He had two and 12 points against UofL last season.

Other frontcourt subs are 6-8 freshman Justin Jackson (2.3 ppg, 2.3 rpg) and 7-0 senior Anthony McClain (2.0 ppg, 2.0 rpg).

MISC.The Bearcats’ strength is their defense. They are allowing

just 57.5 ppg, which ranks fourth in the country, and opponents shoot just 40.2 percent overall, 45th in the country, and 31.6 percent on treys, 57th in the country. Their rebounding margin is plus-5.0, 39th in the country, and they also are taking care of the ball, with a turnover margin at plus-4.4, 10th in the country, an average of 11.0 turnovers a game, 13th in the country, and an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.29/1, 27th in the country. They are not shooting it well, however: 42.6 percent overall, 233rd in the country, 33.7 percent on treys, 184th in the country, and 66.2 percent on free throws, 245th in the country. Lack of discipline may have something to do with their poor shooting: to wit, big men who shoot bricks insist on throwing it up from beyond the arc.

ALL-TIME SERIESUofL and Cincinnati have met 93 times – the most of any

UofL opponent – in a series that dates to 1921, with the Cards holding a 53-40 advantage. The Cards won the last two times the teams met in Cincinnati but lost eight of the previous 10 meetings in the Queen City. The teams were rivals in the Mis-souri Valley and Metro conferences and C-USA and have had many memorable battles. This UofL fan recalls particularly the games from 1965-68 when Westley Unseld would battle the Bearcats’ intimidating front line of Rick Roberson, Jim Ard and Johnny Howard. It was something to see.

NO NAME POS YR EXP HT/WT HOMETOWN 1 CASHMERE WRIGHT G SO. HS 6-0/175 ATLANTA, GA (URBAN CHRISTIAN ACADEMY)

2 EDDIE TYREE G SR. TR 5-10/175 CANAL WINCHESTER, OH (GROVEPORT MADISON)

3 DION DIXON G JR. 1V 6-3/195 CHICAGO, IL (CRANE)

5 JUSTIN JACKSON F FR. HS 6-8/215 COCOA BEACH, FLA. (ARLINGTON COUNTRY DAY)

10 ALEX EPPENSTEINER G SO. HS 6-3/210 CINCINNATI, OH (ELDER)

11 LARRY DAVIS G SR. 2V 6-3/195 HOUSTON, TX (ALIEF-HASTINGS)

15 DARNELL WILKS F SR. 2V 6-7/205 NASHVILLE, TN (PIONEER CHRISTIAN ACADEMY)

22 RASHAD BISHOP F SR. 2V 6-6/225 NEWARK, NJ (KENNEDY)

23 SEAN KILPATRICK G FR. HS 6-4/215 WHITE PLAINS, NY (NOTRE DAME PREP)

25 ANTHONY MCBRIDE G SO. 6-2/176 CINCINNATI, OH (WITHROW HS)

30 ANTHONY MCCLAIN C SR. 2V 7-0/255 FORT WASHINGTON, MD (PIONEER CHRISTIAN ACADEMY)

32 IBRAHIMA THOMAS F SR. 2V 6-11/230 TARZANA, CA (STONERIDGE PREPARATORY)

34 YANCY GATES F JR. 1V 6-9/260 CINCINNATI, OH (WITHROW)

44 JAQUON PARKER G SO. HS 6-3/210 SUFFOLK, VA (KING’S FORK)

2010-11 CINCINNATI BASKETBALL ROSTER

2010-11 SCHEDULEDATE OPPONENT TIME NOVEMBER Nov. 15, 2010 Mount St. Mary’s W, 69-59 Nov. 20, 2010 IPFW W, 65-59 Nov. 22, 2010 Florida A&M W, 76-51 Nov. 24, 2010 Savannah St W, 54-41 Nov. 27, 2010 Dayton W, 68-34

DECEMBERDec. 1, 2010 Wright State W, 77-69 Dec. 4, 2010 at Toledo W, 81-47 Dec. 11, 2010 Utah Valley W, 92-72 Dec. 14, 2010 Georgia So. W, 99-54 Dec. 18, 2010 at Oklahoma W, 66-56 Dec. 21, 2010 at Miami-OH W, 64-48 Dec. 23, 2010 St. Francis PA W, 94-58 Dec. 28, 2010 DePaul W, 76-60 Dec. 31, 2010 Seton Hall W, 70-53

JANUARYJan. 6, 2011 Xavier W, 66-46 Jan. 9, 2011 at Villanova L, 72-61Jan. 12, 2011 South Florida W, 74-66 Jan. 15, 2011 at Syracuse L, 67-52 Jan. 19, 2011 at Notre Dame L, 66-58 Jan. 22, 2011 at St. John’s W, 53-51 Jan. 26, 2011 Rutgers W, 72-56 Jan. 29, 2011 West Virginia L, 66-55

FEBRUARYFeb. 5, 2011 at Pittsburgh L, 71-59 Feb. 8, 2011 at DePaul W, 71-68 Feb. 13, 2011 St. John’s L, 59-57 Feb. 16, 2011 Louisville 7:00 pm ET Feb. 19, 2011 at Providence 7:00 pm ET Feb. 23, 2011 at Georgetown 9:00 pm ET Feb. 27, 2011 Connecticut 12:00 pm ET

MARCHMar. 2, 2011 at Marquette 7:00 pm ET Mar. 5, 2011 Georgetown 2:00 pm ET

Coach: Mick CroninLast season: 19-16, 7-11 Big East

Overall record: 149-97 (eighth season)At UC: 80-74 (fi fth season)

Last NCAA Tournament -- 2005

YANCY GATESYANCY GATES

CINC

INNA

TI B

EARC

ATS

Wednesday, Feb. 16Louisville at Cincinnati

7 PM, ESPN2

BEARCATS DESPERATELY NEED A VICTORY


BASKETBALL PREVIEW VS. UCONN

CONN

ECTI

CUT

HUSK

IES

Friday, Feb. 18UConn at Louisville

9 PM, ESPN

By Rick CushingWhen the Cards played UConn on Jan. 29 in Storrs, the Huskies

were 17-2 (11-0 at home), ranked fi fth in the country and riding a six-game winning streak. UofLwon, 79-78 in double overtime, and the Huskies then lost two of their next three games – 66-58 at home to Syracuse four days later and 89-72 at St. John’s last Thursday. In between they squeaked by host Seton Hall 61-59. They beat visiting Providence 75-57 on Sunday. A principal rea-son for UConn’s bad stretch was the shooting slump of 6-1 junior guard Kemba Walker. Through 19 games he was averaging 25.5 ppg, second in the country, and had led UConn in scoring in all 19 games. But he made just 7 of 23 shots and scored only 20 points against UofL, which did not lead the team, then was 3 of 14 against Syracuse and scored only eight points. He again was held to eight points and 3-of-14 shooting by Seton Hall, and he was 4 of 16 for 15 points against St. John’s, making him 17 of 67 (29.8 percent) over those four games – games in which he did not lead the team in scoring. Opposing teams were cutting off Walker’s drives and forcing him to shoot from outside. “I just can’t make a shot,” he lamented. “…I just have to get through it.”

The Huskies (19-5, 7-5), who were ranked 10th last week but will no doubt fall this week, will play host to Georgetown Wednes-day before playing at Louisville on Friday at 9 p.m.

COACHCalhoun is in the Naismith Hall of Fame. He’s won two na-

tional titles (1999 and 2004) and has been to the Final Four one other time (2009).

He’s in his 39th year as a head coach (the fi rst 14 at North-eastern University) and is 841-363 overall, 593-226 at UConn, where he’s in his 25th season. He’s won 10 Big East regular-season titles, six BE tournament titles and, except for the 2006-07 and 2009-10 seasons, he’s had UConn in the top four in the Big East every season since 1998.

GUARDSWalker’s scoring average has declined to 22.9 ppg, and his

shooting has decreased 4.5 percentage points to 41.8. Even his free-throw shooting has fallen off – decreasing 8.5 percentage points to 78.5. He leads the team in assists at 4.35 a game and with 2.0 steals per game, and he’s third on the team at 5.2 rpg.

He took the fi nal shot against UofL last month, a 35-footer from the right wing that rattled out. If Friday’s game comes down to a fi nal shot by UConn, Walker probably will take it, despite his recent shooting slump.

The other starting guard is 6-5 freshman Jeremy Lamb, who has raised his stats since getting 21 points against the Cards. Before the UofL game he was averaging 7.6 ppg, fourth on the team, and shooting 45 percent overall, 28.2 on treys; now he’s averaging 10.2 ppg, third on the team, and shooting 47.8 percent overall, 31.1 percent on treys. He is very adept at the running

fl oater – he made a half-dozen of them against the Cards. He averages 4.8 rpg, fourth on the team.

The top backcourt sub is 6-0 freshman Shabazz Napier, who’s playing 23.8 minutes a game to Lamb’s 24.9. Napier is averaging 8.9 ppg, fourth on the team, and 3.1 assists per game, second on the team. He’s also getting 1.7 steals per game. He’s shooting only 38 percent overall but 36.8 percent on treys. He made 5 of 11 treys against the Cards, several from far outside, and led UConn in scoring with 23 points.

A swingman who sees a lot of action is 6-7 sophomore Jamal Coombs-McDaniel, who’s averaging 4.5 ppg but is shooting just 35.8 percent. Another backcourt sub is 6-4 senior Donnell Beverly (2.4 ppg, 1.5 rpg).

BIG MENAlex Oriakhi, a 6-9 sophomore, is a force in the middle. He’s

averaging 10.5 ppg, second on the team, and 8.6 rpg, second in the Big East and 43rd in the country. He’s also blocking 2.3 shots per game, fourth in the Big East. He’s shooting 51.1 percent, and he hasn’t taken a three-point shot. He wasn’t a big factor against UofL last month – six points, eight rebounds and three turnovers.

Roscoe Smith, a 6-8 freshman, is starting at one forward and is averaging 7.5 ppg, fi fth on the team, and 5.8 rpg, second on the team. He’s also blocking 1.6 shots per game. He’s shooting just 39.3 percent overall, 30.6 percent on treys. He made just 1 of 9 shots and had fi ve points and 12 rebounds against UofL last month.

The third starter up front varies. Charles Okwandu, a 7-foot senior, has started 10 games and is averaging 2.7 ppg, 2.8 rpg and 1.3 blocked shots. Tyler Olander, a 6-9 freshman, has started 13 games and is averaging 1.5 ppg and 2.3 rpg. Neils Giffey, a 6-7 freshman from Germany who became eligible only in Decem-ber, has started seven games and is averaging 2.8 ppg and 1.3 rpg. All three were scoreless against the Cards last month, with Okwandu and Olander each getting one rebound.

MISC.The Huskies are still leading the Big East in fi eld-goal per-

centage defense at .388 but allowed both UofL and St. John’s to shoot 48.4 percent. They are blocking 6.5 shots a game, fi rst in the Big East and sixth in the country, and making 74.8 per-cent of their free throws, second in the Big East and 20th in the country. They are 25th in the country in fouls per game at 16.2, 34th in turnovers per game at 11.8, 35th in rebounding margin at plus-5.1, and 51st in assist-to-turnover ratio at 1.18/1. They hammered UofL on the boards 51-36 last month.

ALL-TIME SERIESUofL and UConn have met 10 times dating to 2000, with the

teams tied at 5-5. The Cards have won the last three meetings.

NO NAME POS YR EXP HT/WT HOMETOWN 2 DONNELL BEVERLY G SR. 2V 6-4/190 HAWTHORNE, CA (LEUZINGER)3 JEREMY LAMB G-F FR. 6-5/185 NORCROSS, GA (NORCROSS HS)4 JAMAL COOMBS-MCDANIEL F SO. HS 6-7/210 DORCHESTER, MA (TILTON, NH)5 NIELS GIFFEY F FR HS 6-7/210 BERLIN, GERMANY10 TYLER OLANDER F FR. 6-9/225 MANSFIELD, CT (E.O. SMITH HS)13 SHABAZZ NAPIER G FR. 6-0/170 RANDOLPH, MA (CHARLESTOWN HS)15 KEMBA WALKER G JR. 1V 6-1/172 BRONX, NY (RICE)22 ROSCOE SMITH F FR. 6-8/205 BALTIMORE, MD (OAK HILL ACADEMY)23 BENJAMIN STEWART F JR. 6-5/205 DENVER, CO (KENT DENVER HS)25 MICHAEL BRADLEY F-C FR. 6-10/235 CHATTANOOGA, TN (TYNER ACADEMY)34 ALEX ORIAKHI F-C SO. HS 6-9/240 LOWELL, MA (TILTON, NH)35 CHARLES OKWANDU C SR. 2V 7-0/255 LAGOS, NIGERIA, (HARCUM JC)55 KYLE BAILEY G SR. 2V 6-3/170 LANCASTER, NH (WHITE MOUNTAINS)

2010-11 UCONN BASKETBALL ROSTER

Coach: Jim CalhounLast season: 18-16, 7-11 Big East

Overall record: 841-363 (39TH SEASON)At UConn: 593-226 (25TH SEASON)

Calhoun is in the Hall of Fame, has won two NCAA titles

KEMBA WALKERKEMBA WALKER

2010-11 SCHEDULEDATE OPPONENT TIME NOVEMBER Nov. 12, 2010 Stony Brook W, 79-52 Nov. 17, 2010 Vermont W, 89-73 Nov. 22, 2010 Wichita St.1 W, 83-79 Nov. 30, 2010 New Hampshire W, 62-55

DECEMBERDec. 3, 2010 Maryland-BC W, 94-61 Dec. 8, 2010 Fairleigh Dickinson W, 78-54 Dec. 20, 2010 Coppin St. W, 76-64 Dec. 22, 2010 Harvard W, 81-52 Dec. 27, 2010 at Pittsburgh L, 78-63 Dec. 31, 2010 South Florida W, 66-61

JANUARYJan. 4, 2011 at Notre Dame L, 73-70 Jan. 8, 2011 at Texas W, 82-81 Jan. 11, 2011 Rutgers W, 67-53 Jan. 15, 2011 at DePaul W, 82-62 Jan. 17, 2011 Villanova W, 61-59 Jan. 22, 2011 Tennessee W, 72-61 Jan. 25, 2011 at Marquette W, 76-68 Jan. 29, 2011 Louisville L, 79-78

FEBRUARYFeb. 2, 2011 Syracuse L, 66-58 Feb. 5, 2011 at Seton Hall W, 61-59 Feb. 10, 2011 at St. John’s L, 89-72 Feb. 13, 2011 Providence W, 75-57Feb. 16, 2011 Georgetown 7:00 pm ET Feb. 18, 2011 at Louisville 9:00 pm ET Feb. 24, 2011 Marquette 7:00 pm ET Feb. 27, 2011 at Cincinnati 12:00 pm ET

MARCHMar. 2, 2011 at West Virginia 7:00 pm ET Mar. 5, 2011 Notre Dame 2:00 pm ET

HUSKIES WILL BE SEEKING REVENGE AGAINST CARDS


WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

SHORT-HANDED CARDS KNOCK OFF WVUBy Howie LindseyWithout star junior Monique Reid for most of

the game and with starting guard Tia Gibbs lim-ited by foul trouble, unranked Louisville found a way to beat No. 17 West Virginia 57-47 Sunday night at the KFC Yum! Center.

“That’s one thing about being a coach, you just have to go with the fl ow sometimes,” UofL coach Jeff Walz said when asked about his drasti-cally changed lineup.

Reid, who was injured in the shoot-around prior to the game, was the biggest hole in the lineup, but she wasn’t the only one missing. The Cardinals took another hit when Gibbs went to the bench in the fi rst two minutes with two fouls. Gibbs, who averages 8.3 points and leads the team in steals, scored the game’s fi rst basket but was on the bench shortly after.

“It was very frustrating, but we can’t let the referees dictate our game,” she said. “Thank goodness everybody was ready to play. I get a foul or two fouls and Becky (Burke) came in and was ready to play. Asia (Taylor) came in, and we were all constantly ready to play and pick each other up.”

The Cardinals (16-9, 7-4) played with a remark-able urgency throughout the game. They seemed to understand that a win over West Virginia (20-6, 6-6) would do wonders for their league seed-ing and their chances at getting an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament.

“It was huge,” freshman point guard Shoni Schimmel said. “I mean, this game was big be-cause it was at our house. We let Georgetown come in here and take over our house. It was good to get redemption and get West Virginia a loss from us.”

Without two starters, both of whom are strong rebounders, Louisville was pounded on the glass in the fi rst half. West Virginia out-rebounded Lou-isville by 11 in the fi rst 20 minutes, using a distinct size advantage to muscle the Cardinals out of the way. Despite West Virginia’s size and rebounding advantage, Louisville built a 15-11 lead with 9:20 to go in the half. But the Mountaineers scored the next nine points to lead 20-15 with just over fi ve minutes left.

A scrappy Louisville effort, embodied perfectly by 5-foot-4 reserve guard Shelby Harper, helped the Cardinals claw back into the lead. Sheronne Vails was fouled with 0.5 left and hit both free throws to give UofL a 23-22 lead at the break.

“I was really pleased with our effort, and we followed the game plan,” Walz said. “...For the most part I was really proud of our effort.”

UofL held the lead at halftime despite shooting just 27 percent and getting out-rebounded 24-13. West Virginia hit just 6 of 26 shots in the fi rst half, with leading scorer Liz Repella going 1 of 8.

“The whole week, all we talked about was de-fense,” Gibbs said. “Their star player was Repella, and we wanted to limit her touches. She has a quick release, and if she touched it she was going to shoot it. We were just riding her and trying to get her into foul trouble.”

The Cardinals started the second half with a jumper by Vails to go ahead 25-22, but a three-point play by Ayana Dunning tied the score at 25. Louisville pressed ahead 28-25 on a three by Schimmel.

A layup by Hines and a jumper by Schimmel put the Cardinals up 32-25 with 14:50 left. That prompted a timeout by West Virginia coach Mike Carey. A steal and a layup by Vanessa House cut Louisville’s lead to 32-27.

A layup by Gibbs put Louisville ahead by seven with just under 14 minutes left, and a wild, fall-ing out-of-bounds three by Schimmel as the shot clock sounded made it 37-27.

“I just heard everybody yelling out the shot clock, so I just had to shoot,” Schimmel said.

“We didn’t have to go rebound, we just knew

it was going in,” Gibbs said.Schimmel’s wild shot got the fans on their feet,

but it was Louisville’s defense that was respon-sible for the double-digit lead.

“We actually contested shots tonight,” Walz said. “I thought we did a much better job of contesting shots tonight rather than just hop-ing teams miss shots. In the past, some of the teams we played just missed open shots. Tonight, I thought we were there to contest those shots and put a hand up. If we want to win, we have to do that.”

The Mountaineers were able to close within seven by the 9:00 mark, and a pair of free throws by Madina Ali cut the margin to 39-34 with 8:38 left. Two more free throws by Ali at the 8:04 mark cut the lead to three.

That would be as close as West Virginia would get. Schimmel hit another jumper as time expired on the shot clock with 7:33 left to put the Cards ahead 41-36. Reid scored her fi rst points at the 6:50 mark to put UofL ahead by seven.

West Virginia’s fi nal attempt at a run cut the margin to 46-41, but a pair of free throws by Reid with 3:53 left put Louisville up seven again, and a layup by Gibbs on a nifty pass from Reid in-creased the lead to 50-41. The Mountaineers got a layup from Ali with just over a minute left, but they fouled Burke, Louisville’s best foul shooter (89 percent), and she hit both shots with 53.1 seconds left to put the Cardinals ahead by nine. West Virginia got no closer than nine points the rest of the way.

NO MO?After spraining her ankle in pre-game warm-

ups, Reid wasn’t in the starting lineup. She wasn’t even on the bench to start the game.

Just before tipoff, Louisville assistant sports in-formation director Kim Pemberton said Reid was still in the locker room and wasn’t ruled out for a second-half return. At halftime, Reid was seen working on her ankle fl exibility in the tunnel out-side Louisville’s locker room.

“She sprained her ankle during the shoot-around,” Walz said. “I wasn’t sure she would ever walk again.... Our trainers did a fantastic job working with her in the locker room in the fi rst half. I told them to not to even bring her out there for the fi rst half.... They taped her up and confi rmed to her - we did an X-ray - that there was no damage done and it was just a sprained ankle.

“She went out there. I wanted to see how long I could go without playing her if I didn’t have to. I thought she did a fantastic job the last eight minutes of the game for us.”

Reid, a preseason All-Big East selection who is averaging 16.3 points and 6.2 rebounds, both team highs, checked into the game for the fi rst time at the 8:13 mark to a loud ovation from

the fans. She fi nished with four points, three re-bounds and an assist in eight minutes played.

“That was all heart,” Gibbs said. “We teach all about family. That is what we talk about, and we play for each other. She is in a lot of pain right now, but she did it for us, basically. She knew she needed to play to help this team, and that is what she did.”

MOUNTAINEERS ON A SLIDEWest Virginia was 19-1 after a win over South

Florida on Jan. 22. Since then, the Mountaineers have lost fi ve of their last six games, including Sunday’s loss. The Cards should be emboldened that they beat WVU by more points than No. 2 Connecticut did last week. The Huskies won 57-51 in a hard-fought, close game throughout.

SYRACUSE NEXTNow 7-4 in the Big East, Louisville’s toughest

part of the schedule is behind them. Sure, they still have an upcoming date against DePaul (23-3, 10-1), but their other four remaining opponents are all ranked above No. 75 in the RPI, starting with No. 78 Syracuse (17-7, 5-6) Wednesday.

“This (West Virginia) was a big game for us, there is no question about it,” Walz said. “We’re sitting at 7-4 now and we have fi ve conference games left. We have to perform the rest of the way now, though. We have Syracuse next and they are tough to beat at home, and then we have South Florida after that. They are 1-10 in the league, but they’re losing games by six or eight points. Those are close games, and a boxout here or free throw there can change those games. I can understand that after our season last year.”

Tia Gibbs, a transfer from Vanderbilt, leads Louisville with 61 steals this season. She is also fourth in scoring (8.3 ppg) and third in rebounding (4.2 rpg). - photo by Shelley Feller

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KFC Yum! Center OPENING PHOTO GALLERYSELECTED FALL SPORTS SCHEDULESBIG EAST NOTEBOOK

By Russ BrownDon’t ask Rick Pitino, or any other coach

for that matter, to make sense of the Big East Conference basketball race, which is heading into the stretch run this week -- the fi nal three weeks leading up to the league tournament in Madison Square Garden, which fi gures to

be as unpredictable as the regular season.

Well, unpredictable except on two counts -- the top and bottom. The only constants have been Pittsburgh, which barring a total collapse looks as if it is going to prove the preseason poll correct and win the championship,

and DePaul. The Blue Demons were picked last and aren’t disappointing, with an 0-12 record.

Other than those two teams, the confer-ence has been a hodge-podge of wild fi n-ishes, improbable twists and teams taking turns constructing winning streaks or suffer-ing through losing streaks. Only Louisville and Pitt have avoided back-to-back losses.

Right now, the hottest teams in the league are No. 4 Pitt, which is 11-1; Georgetown (9-4), which has won eight straight but still trails the Panthers by three games in the loss col-umn; and Notre Dame (10-3), which has won seven in a row.

Georgetown’s winning streak came on the heels of a three-game losing streak and losses in four of its fi rst fi ve conference games. Notre Dame turned the corner after losing its fi rst three road games. Even Pitt hasn’t dominated very many teams. Six of the Panthers’ wins have been by eight points or fewer. Their loss came at home to Notre Dame, 56-51.

“I have a hard time fi guring out Connecti-cut, I have a hard time fi guring out Rutgers, I have a hard time fi guring out Providence, I have a hard time fi guring out St. John’s,” Pitino said. “DePaul and Pittsburgh have been the only consistents in the Big East. I don’t think they’re up and down, it’s just that it’s a tough league and you don’t know where your next win is going to come from. I think John Thompson III said it best, ‘The next tough game is the next game,’ and that’s the way this league is. I’m not sure about Texas Christian yet.

“There are a lot of teams right now play-ing terrifi c basketball. It will go down to the last game of the season to see when you’re traveling to New York and when you’re going to play.”

Eight Big East teams are ranked in the Associated Press top 25, and if the season ended today a record 10 conference teams would make the NCAA Tournament, accord-ing to CollegeRPI.com. As an indication of the league’s strength, St. John’s has an RPI of 19 and has played the nation’s toughest sched-ule, but the Red Storm is in the middle of the standings at 7-5.

Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun, who will bring his team to Louisville this Friday seeking to avenge a double-overtime loss in Storrs on Jan. 29, thinks the Big East is too big.

“The Big East has too many good teams, is too big, and 18 conference games is way too

many games to play,” he said. “And when we add two more schools, that’s going to be fun ... a 20-game schedule.”

Jerry Palm, the guru behind CollegeRPI.com, told the New York Post that he agrees with Calhoun and others who contend the conference is too unwieldy.

“It’s too big just because it’s too big,” Palm said. “It’s not because of the depth, it’s because you’re depending so much on your schedule. You don’t get a home-and-home with everyone, so who do you get twice? Who do you play on the road and at home? If you weren’t good enough out of conference, you might not be able to make up for a rough stretch in conference.”

Palm told the Post he expects the Big East to do reasonably well in the NCAA Tourna-ment. He said the Big East teams that don’t get as high a seed as they had hoped still will have the benefi t of having played tourna-ment-caliber opponents almost every night.

“It’s high-risk, high-reward,” he said.PANTHERS ARE ROARINGPitt’s last two victories have been impres-

sive because the Panthers (23-2) won on the road at No. 25 West Virginia (71-66) and No. 9 Villanova (57-54) despite playing with-out leading scorer and fl oor general Ashton Gibbs.

Gibbs, who averages 16.3 points per game, is recuperating from a partially torn medial collateral ligament in his left knee. He’s expected back in time for the Panthers’ game at UofL on Feb. 27.

Villanova (19-6, 7-5) was playing without senior guard and second-leading scorer Corey Stokes, who is dealing with a turf toe injury. He averages 14.6 ppg.

Pitt’s win over Villanova Saturday night was its fi rst in the Pavilion, the Wildcats’ cozy on-campus arena, in 17 years and snapped ‘Nova’s 46-game winning streak there. Pitt

has won 11 of its fi rst 12 Big East games for the fi rst time in school history. The Panthers have also for the fi rst time won six straight games on the road to start Big East play and have won 19 of their past 25 games away from home.

It was Pitt’s fi fth victory this season against a ranked opponent in seven tries, and the Panthers have won 12 of their past 14 games against teams in the top 10.

Villanova coach Jay Wright thinks this Pitt team compares to its 2009 club that lost to his Wildcats at the buzzer in the Elite Eight.

“Their depth, their experience, their vet-eran guys are awesome,” Wright said.

Of Gibbs’ absence, Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said: “We didn’t spend too much time wor-rying about who we didn’t have. You don’t want to make it bigger than it is. It’s good to see us fi ght through some things and be-lieve in what we were doing even though we weren’t making shots.”

A couple of players who got away proved the most troublesome for Villanova, with Phil-adelphia natives Brad Wanamaker and Nasir Robinson combining for 37 points.

“The Philly guys played like Philly guys,” said Dixon.

“We missed on both guys, no doubt,” Wright said. “They proved it tonight.”

It was a typical Pitt-Villanova game. There was one punch, three technical fouls and 50 free throws.

Villanova, which shoots 45 percent from the fl oor, made just three baskets in the fi rst 14 minutes of the second half.

“That’s what we do, we defend, and we do it for 40 minutes,” Dixon said.

“It was fun. A hostile environment, no Ashton Gibbs and we got the win,” Wana-maker said.

4-POINT PLAY DOOMS ‘NOVAIn the most bizzare ending to a Big East

game this season, Florida transfer JonathanMitchell’s four-point play with less than a sec-ond remaining capped a career-high 25-pointperformance and gave host Rutgers a 77-76victory over Villanova last Wednesday.

Mitchell, who was coming off a career-best 24 points in a loss to Notre Dame, hita three-point shot from about 25 feet andwas fouled by Corey Fisher. After a Villanovatimeout, Mitchell, a 74 percent free-throwshooter, hit the tiebreaker.

“After I hit the shot I couldn’t believe it went in,” the 6-foot-7 Mitchell said. “Theycalled the timeout and I decided to calmdown, relax, breathe. Coach asked me if Iwanted to sit down. I’m in the gym shoot-ing at 12, 1 a.m., and I said to myself it’s justanother night in the gym with the lights out. Istepped up like a senior and made it.”

Fisher’s length-of-the-court inbounds pass was caught by Maurice Sutton as he fell outof bounds. The Rutgers students poured onthe court -- nothing like the football fans didafter a win over Louisville in 2006, however-- and the celebration was on.

Fisher had 23 points, went 5 of 7 from three-point range and had 10 assists and fi vesteals, but he had a miserable fi nal 6.3 sec-onds.

He made only one of two free throws with 6.3 seconds left, leaving Villanova with onlya three-point lead. He hit Mitchell as he shotwith 0.8 seconds to go, giving the ScarletKnights (13-12, 4-9) a chance at the win.

“I went to the line with confi dence, but missed the fi rst one,” Fisher said. “I knewthey were going for a three, and me and Tone(Antonio Pena) pressured (James) Beatty andwe switched and my hand was in there. Hemade the tough shot, went to the free-throwline and made the shot. I was hurt. I’m a cap-tain on this team, and we should have wonthe game. I made a mistake.”

Wright didn’t blame Fisher.“They caught him right in the split second

he was denying the pass and it went throughhis hands and he fouled him,” Wright said.“It was perfect execution by them. It hap-pens. He was making the right play.”

Rutgers, which will host Louisville on Feb. 22, came in on a four-game losing streak,although three of those losses were closegames, including 65-62 to Pitt.

“We’ve had improvement, but in the Big East sometimes no one knows it because youkeep on getting the Ls,” fi rst-year Rutgerscoach Mike Rice said. “The single-most thingwe’ve improved on this season as a programis the toughness and resolve this team has.”

The Wildcats, despite shooting 55.8 per-cent (24 of 43) and 50 percent on treys (8 of16), just couldn’t pull away from the ScarletKnights, who turned in another gritty defen-sive effort.

“We knew coming in how well they play here,” Wright said. “I thought we playedwell until there was about 1:35 left. The lastfour, fi ve possessions of the game we didn’tdo anything right and they did everythingright.”

UC’S GATES BENCHED AGAINCincinnati may be without starting pow-

er forward Yancy Gates for Louisville’s visitWednesday night. The Bearcats (19-6, 6-6)

Syracuse’s Rick Jackson lost control of the ball as Louisville’s Peyton Siva, Terrence

Jennings and Kyle Kuric swarmed to collect the turnover. Louisville beat Syracuse 73-69 Saturday to move into a tie for third place in

the league. - photo by Shelley Feller


W I T H O U T G I B B S , P A N T H E R S E D G E C L O S E R T O T I T L E

PITT, DEPAUL ONLY CONSTANTS IN UNPREDICTABLE BIG EAST


BIG EAST NOTEBOOK

played most of Sunday’s 59-57 homecourt loss to St. John’s without Gates, who was suspended for a game last week.

He played only one minute in the second half, stewing on the bench and fi nishing without scoring in 13 minutes.

It was a reversal of their game at St. John’s on Jan. 22, when Gates’ three-point play with eight seconds left gave the Bearcats a 53-51 victory. This time, Gates was on the bench with his head down while St. John’s pulled it out in the closing seconds.

Gates, Cincinnati’s best inside scorer, was suspended for a loss at Pitt for breaking team rules, then came off the bench and played 16 minutes during a 71-68 win at DePaul last week. He was the last player out of the locker room at halftime Sunday, got in the game for a minute and was benched again.

He sat angrily in his padded folding chair, gesturing and muttering to himself while oth-ers played his position. During timeouts, he stood in the back of the huddle and looked around the arena or stared at the fl oor.

St. John’s (15-9, 7-5) failed to make a fi eld goal over the last 8:58, letting its 12-point lead evaporate, but Malik Boothe and Jus-tin Brownlee hit late free throws that carried the Red Storm to their second victory in four days. St. John’s is in the middle of a tough stretch of three games in six days, concluding Tuesday night at Marquette (15-10, 6-6).

With 1:18 left, Gates jumped up from his seat at the end of the bench and ran to the scorer’s table to enter the game after Ibrahima Thomas had fouled out. The Fifth Third Are-na crowd of 7,374 booed loudly. Gates had spent all but one minute of the second half at the end of the bench wearing his warm-up jacket and sulking. The crowd apparently no-ticed. As it turned out, Gates did not re-enter the game. His call to the scorer’s table was a false alarm.

“I have no idea who told him to do that,” said UC coach Mick Cronin. “We’re winning and they’re pressing. Even if he’s playing well, with his free-throw percentage, we’re not go-ing to put him in at that point. I play the guys that give the Cincinnati Bearcats the best chance to win.”

There was a time not long ago when Gates, who entered Sunday’s game averag-ing 11.1 points and 6.7 rebounds, was one of those players. But not lately.

“You’ve got to produce,” Cronin said. “You can’t just stand on the low block and wait for everybody to throw you the ball.”

SETON HALL PLAYERS GET THE BOOTSeton Hall senior guards Keon Lawrence

and Jamel Jackson were dismissed from the team over the weekend “due to a violation of team rules and an ongoing pattern of con-duct unbecoming of a representative of Seton Hall athletics,” read a statement released by the school.

Lawrence, a Newark, N.J., native who transferred from Missouri in 2008, had ap-peared in all 24 games so far this season, including seven starts. He was averaging 4.5 points, 3.1 rebounds and 2.9 assists in 24 minutes per game.

Jackson, who hails from Brooklyn, ap-peared in 19 games, averaging 4.6 points and 1.2 rebounds in 14.7 minutes per game.

Lawrence has been in trouble before. In November 2009 he was charged with driv-ing under the infl uence and driving with a suspended license after he was involved in a two-car accident because he was driving on the wrong side of the Garden State Parkway.

Big East Basketball Standings

1. Pittsburgh 23-2 (11-1)Panthers play host to struggling USF Wednesday, visit dangerous St. John’s Saturday.

2. Notre Dame 21-4 (10-3)Streaking Irish will put seven-game winning streak on line Saturday at WVU.

3. Georgetown 20-5 (9-4)Hoyas, who have won eight straight, play at UConn Wednesday, at USF Saturday.

4. Louisville 19-6 (8-4)Cards at rival Cincinnati Wednesday, host revenge-minded UConn Friday.

t-5. Villanova 19-5 (7-5)Wildcats, who have lost two straight, at Seton Hall Tuesday, at hapless DePaul Saturday.

t-5. Connecticut 19-5 (7-5)Huskies entertain Georgetown Wednesday, at UofL Friday, having lost at home to Cards in double OT last month.

t-5. West Virginia 16-8 (7-5)Mountaineers at Syracuse Monday, host Notre Dame Saturday.

t-5. St. John’s 15-9 (7-5)Red Storm at Marquette Tuesday, hosts Pitt Saturday seeking fourth homecourt victory over team ranked in top 13.

9. Syracuse 20-6 (7-6)Orange hosts WVU Monday and Rutgers Saturday.

t-10. Marquette 15-10 (6-6)Golden Eagles host St. John’s Wednesday, Seton Hall Saturday.

t-10. Cincinnati 19-6 (6-6)Bearcats entertain Louisville Wednesday, at Providence Saturday.

12. Seton Hall 11-14 (5-8)Improving Pirates host Villanova Tuesday, at Marquette Saturday.

13. Rutgers 13-12 (4-9)Dangerous Knights at Syracuse Saturday.

14. Providence 14-11 (3-9)Marshon Brooks show entertains DePaul Thursday, Cincinnati Saturday.

15. South Florida 8-18 (2-11)Bulls at Pittsburgh Wednesday, host Georgetown Saturday.

16. DePaul 6-18 (0-12)Blue Demons at Providence Thursday, host Villanova Saturday.


CARDINAL STARSAUSTEN CHILDS - MEN’S TENNISThe senior from Mount Maunganui, New Zealand, was one of 16 male student-athletes - one from each Big East school - to be awarded $2,000 scholarships as winners of 2010-11 American Eagle Outfi tters Big East Institutional Male Scholar-Athlete Awards. The selections were made by the conference’s Academic Affairs Committee. The 16 selections represent some of the best and brightest in Big East athletics. Childs is Louisville’s top-seeded player and was NCAA runner-up in singles last year. He entered the 2010-11 season at No. 10 in the ITA National Tennis Rankings. Childs is a three-time All-Big East team member and two-time league Player of the Year. He became only the second All-American in program history when he reached the NCAA round of 16 last spring (the other was Michael Mather in 1998).

ANDREW CARTER - MEN’S TENNISThe junior from Greensboro, N.C., clinched a victory for UofL over No. 24 Oklahoma Friday at the Bass-Rudd Tennis Center. The Cardinals eeked out a 4-3 victory with the help of two points from Carter. First, he and teammate Simon Childs beat Oklahoma’s John Warden and Lawrence Formentera 8-5 at the No. 2 doubles spot to help the Cardinals win the doubles point. Then, with his team up 3-1 but with two of his teammates losing singles matches, Carter came from behind to beat Formentera 4-6, 6-0, 6-4 at No. 5 singles to earn Louisville’s match-clinching fourth point. “I just felt all day Carter’s court was going to be the clincher for us, and he showed he has improved mentally and technically in his play,” coach Rex Ecarma said. “He is our MVP of today’s match.” The Cardinals improved to 8-0 for the best start in school history.

HANNAH GADD - WOMEN’S DIVINGThe sophomore from Ft. Thomas, Ky., won the 1-meter event with a record-setting performance Saturday evening at the Big East Diving Championships at the Ralph Wright Natatorium on the UofL campus. Combined with her second-place fi nish on the 3-meter board on Friday, Gadd was named the Big East’s Most Outstanding Diver. UofL diving coach Mike Zehnder earned Women’s Big East Diving Coach of the Year kudos for the second year in a row. Gadd dove “lights out,” according to Zehnder. “After her second dive she said she felt she had it won.” Gadd won the 1-meter event with a score of 329.95, a new Big East record. Second place scored 301.60.

KYLE KURIC - MEN’S BASKETBALLThe junior from Evansville, Ind., hit 9 of 15 shots, including 5 of 7 three-point attempts, to score 23 points against Syracuse last Saturday. Kuric, who scored a then-career-high 22 points to spark Louisville’s upset of then-No. 1 Syracuse in the fi nal regular-season game last season, was the star of the game again this year. He also had fi ve rebounds, four assists and a steal. “Kyle runs that triangle great,” coach Rick Pitino said. “We try to let him work the triangle. He’s got a very good fl oater in the lane. He’s a good passer, and then he gets out to the corner. If he gets to the left corner, that’s Kyle’s corner. We call that on every play, we look for Kyle in that left corner. He’s getting better in the right corner. A lot of players don’t like shooting the corner shot. He does.”

TORI COLLINS - SOFTBALLThe junior from Lafayette, Ind., threw a one-hitter as the Cards beat Tulsa 5-0 in the semifi nals of the Texas Classic Saturday in Austin. “We were excited to see Tori come out and throw a great game today,” coach Sandy Pearsall said. “We continue to play solid defense, we were able to swing the bats better, but we still need to be more aggressive at the plate.” A 5-foot-10 left-handed pitcher, Collins was an all-Big East fi rst-team selection last season after posting an 18-6 record with a 2.24 ERA and 163 strikeouts. The Cardinals also beat Tulsa 4-1 and Northern Illinois 6-1 during the tournament.

ADAM HADWIN - MEN’S GOLFThe former UofL All-American golfer won his fi rst Canadian Tour event earlier this month at the Desert Dunes Classic in Desert Hot Springs, Calif. He posted rounds of 63-67-69-70 for a 19-under-par 269, then eventually won on the fi rst hole of a sudden-death playoff. The Abbortsford, B.C., native won nearly $20,000 last summer when he tied for 37th at the RBC Canadian Open with a 5-under score.

WESTON BANKS - MEN’S TRACK AND FIELDThe senior from Greensburg, Pa., was named Big East Men’s FieldAthlete of the Week last week. He set career marks in the weight throw and shot put. He fi nished ninth in the weight throw on Feb. 4 with a toss of 18.51m/58 feet, 6 3/4 inches. A day later he fi nished third in the shot put with a throw of 17.85m/58-6 3/4. That mark ranks No. 23 nationally in the event and is a little more than a foot away from the school record, which was set in 2009 by Steven Hnat (18.22m/59-9 1/2).

CHILDSCHILDS

CARTERCARTER

GADDGADD

KURICKURIC

COLLINSCOLLINS

HADWINHADWIN

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BASKETBALL PREVIEW VS. RUTGERS

RUTG

ERS

SCA

RLET

KNI

GHTS

Tuesday, Feb. 22Louisville at Rutgers

9 PM, ESPNU

By Rick CushingWhat appeared to be a very winnable game as recently as a

couple of weeks ago now fi gures to be a challenge when UofL vis-its Rutgers next Tuesday. That’s because the Scarlet Knights have been playing much better the past couple of weeks, culminating with a shocking 77-76 upset of No. 9 Villanova last Wednesday when Jonathan Mitchell converted a four-point play at 0:08 (he canned a three-point shot from the right of the key, was fouled, and made the free throw).

Even before knocking off Villanova, the Scarlet Knights had served notice they weren’t a team to be taken lightly. They took then-No. 2 Pittsburgh right down to the wire before falling 65-62 on Jan. 29, fell just 58-56 at St. John’s on Feb. 2, and played then-No. 9 Notre Dame tough before losing 76-69 on Feb. 6 in South Bend.

After falling prey to the game-after-a-big-win syndrome and los-ing to visiting Seton Hall 69-64 on Saturday, Rutgers is 13-12, 4-9 in the Big East.

When the season started the Scarlet Knights looked like a prime contender to fi nish last in the Big East. In a preseason poll of coach-es they were picked to fi nish 15th in the 16-team league, with only hapless DePaul beneath them.

Their projected fi nish seemed justifi ed because new coach Mike Rice inherited a team with just fi ve returning scholarship players, and among those departed were leading scorer Mike Rosario and leading rebounder and shot-blocker extraordinaire Hamady Ndiaye.

Rice brought in fi ve newcomers and vowed to emphasize defense and teamwork on offense. “We are going to be the best defensive team that we possibly can be,” he said. “We are building an unself-ish and hard-working team…. Things could look bleak in terms of achieving in the Big East. That will not be the case, however, if we are good teammates playing disciplined basketball with the right mentality.”

Rice appears to have given the Scarlet Knights hope that there is light at the end of a long tunnel. It has been 20 years since Rut-gers made the NCAA Tournament. Rutgers will have a week off after Seton Hall before playing at Syracuse Saturday, then will entertain the Cards.

COACHRice served as an assistant coach for 13 years, including at St.

Joseph’s, Marquette and Pittsburgh, establishing a reputation as a very good recruiter. He left Pitt in 2007 to take the head coaching job at Robert Morris University, which he led to a 73-31 record in three seasons and NCAA Tournament berths in 2009 and 2010. Last year the Colonials took No. 2 seed Villanova to overtime in the opening round before losing 73-70, and one month later the Knights hired him to guide their program.

GUARDSSenior James Beatty and Mike Coburn start in the backcourt and

provide a steadying if unspectacular infl uence. The 6-2 Beatty aver-ages 8.7 ppg, third on the team, and 2.8 assists, second on the team. He leads in steals at 1.7 per game. He’s shooting just 40 per-cent overall but a good 38.5 percent from three-point range. He had no points but fi ve assists in a 76-60 loss to host UofL last Feb. 6.

The 6-0 Coburn is averaging 8.3 ppg, fi fth on the team, and leads in assists at 4.0 a game. He’s shooting 43.4 percent overall, 31.4 per-cent on treys. He’s second on the team in steals at 1.6 a game.

The top backcourt sub is 6-5 freshman Mike Poole, who’s averaging 6.9 ppg, sixth on the team, and 3.5 rpg, fourth on the team. He’s shoot-ing 45.9 percent overall but just 13.3 percent on treys.

BIG MENJonathan Mitchell, a 6-7 senior, is the team leader, both statisti-

cally and otherwise. “He always had tremendous skill level, a great knowledge of the

game, but his biggest development has been his leadership and coming outside himself and being more vocal,” said Rice. “Every single day he’s going to get the best out of this team and the best out of himself…. He’s one of the guys I’m always going to remember…. He will always be the guy I owe the beginning of success to.”

Mitchell leads the team in scoring (14.8 ppg) and rebounding (5.9 rpg). He’s shooting 46.1 percent overall, an outstanding 41.2 percent on treys. Like UofL’s Kyle Kuric, he’s deadly from the corner.

Mitchell scored a career-high 25 points against Villanova, in-cluding the four-point play at 0:08 that beat the Wildcats. He had 17 points, seven rebounds and seven assists against UofL last season.

Dane Miller, a 6-7 sophomore, is averaging 9.7 ppg, second on the team, and is tied with Mitchell for the team lead at 5.9 rpg. He’s third on the team at 2.5 assists per game and leads at 1.9 blocks a game. He’s shooting just 41.7 percent overall, only 20.7 percent on treys. He had 17 points, seven rebounds and three assists against UofL last season.

The starting center is 6-8 freshman Gilvydas Biruta, who’s aver-aging 8.6 ppg, fourth on the team, and 5.3 rpg, third. He’s shooting 51.7 percent overall but just 23.1 percent on treys.

Austin Johnson, a burly 6-8 sophomore, is the top frontcourt sub. He’s averaging 4.8 ppg and 2.3 rpg and shooting 55.4 percent. He’s taken no three-point shots.

MISC:True to Rice’s preseason vow, the Knights are playing good de-

fense. They are holding the opposition to 64.3 ppg, which ranks 73rd in the country, and allowing foes to shoot just 39.5 percent over-all, fourth in the Big East and 23rd in the country. The opposition is making 34.3 percent of its three-point shots, which is 179th in the country. The Knights are blocking 5.4 shots a game, 21st in the country, and are making 8.0 steals a game, 54th in the country. They also are doing a good job taking care of the ball, averaging just 12.0 turnovers a game, 45th in the country, with a turnover margin of plus-2.4, 50th in the country, and an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.1/1, 80th in the country. They are scoring just 66.5 ppg, 242nd in the country, shooting 44.4 percent overall, 132nd in the country, 33.9 percent on treys, 179th, and just 65.8 percent on free throws, 250th. Rebounding also has been a problem. RU’s rebound margin is -0.8, 224th in the country.

ALL-TIME SERIESUofL and Rutgers have met nine times in a series dating to 1975,

with the Cards holding an 8-1 advantage. They have won the past four meetings. UofL is 2-1 at Rutgers.

NO NAME POS YR EXP. HT/WT HOMETOWN 2 AUSTIN CARROLL G FR. HS 6-3/200 BEDFORD, MA (BREWSTER ACADEMY)10 JAMES BEATTY G SR. 3V 6-2/190 WILMINGTON, NC (MIAMI-DADE J.C.)11 DANE MILLER G-F SO. 1V 6-7/215 HENRIETTA, NY (RUSH-HENRIETTA)15 CHARLIE RIGOGLIOSO G JR. 2V 6-2/185 WAYNE, NJ (MORAVIAN UNIVERSITY)21 AUSTIN JOHNSON F-C SO. HS 6-8/250 ELKINS PARK, PA (BLAIR ACADEMY, N.J.)22 MIKE KUHN G JR. 2V 6-1/190 OCEANPORT, NJ (CHRISTIAN BROTHERS ACADEMY)24 JONATHAN MITCHELL F SR. 2V 6-7/225 MOUNT VERNON, NY (MOUNT VERNON)31 MIKE COBURN G SR. 3V 6-0/185 MT. VERNON, NY (MT. VERNON)32 MIKE POOLE G-F FR. HS 6-5/190 ROSEDALE, NY (ST. BENEDICT’S PREP)33 FRANK MITCHELL F FR. HS 6-6/200 HILLSBOROUGH, NJ (HILLSBOROUGH HS)40 TOMAS KOKOSINSKI F JR. 2V 6-8/240 BERGENFIELD, NJ (BERGEN COUNTY TECH)55 GILVYDAS BIRUTA F FR. HS 6-8/230 JONAVA, LITHUANIA (ST. BENEDICT’S PREP)

2010-11 RUTGERS BASKETBALL ROSTER

Coach: Mike RiceLast season: 15-17, 5-13 Big East

Overall record: 86-43 (fourth season)At Rutgers: First season

Coached previously at Robert Morris

MIKE COBURNMIKE COBURN

2010-11 SCHEDULEDATE OPPONENT TIME NOVEMBER Nov. 12, 2010 at Princeton L, 78-73 Nov. 15, 2010 Fairfi eld W, 68-53 Nov. 21, 2010 Miami-FL W, 61-45 Nov. 23, 2010 Norfolk St. W, 83-59 Nov. 26, 2010 at St. Joseph’s L, 76-70

DECEMBERDec. 1, 2010 NJ TECH W, 66-54 Dec. 7, 2010 Marist W, 64-48 Dec. 11, 2010 Auburn W, 63-54 Dec. 14, 2010 Fairleigh Dickinson W, 79-65 Dec. 18, 2010 at Monmouth W, 79-56 Dec. 23, 2010 St. Peter’s W, 55-52 Dec. 28, 2010 N. Carolina L, 78-55

JANUARY Jan. 2, 2011 at Villanova L, 81-65 Jan. 5, 2011 Marquette L, 73-65 Jan. 8, 2011 Providence W, 85-72 Jan. 11, 2011 at Connecticut L, 67-53 Jan. 15, 2011 Georgetown L, 74-65 Jan. 20, 2011 South Florida W, 71-62 Jan. 22, 2011 at Seton Hall W, 66-60 Jan. 26, 2011 at Cincinnati L, 72-56 Jan. 29, 2011 Pittsburgh L, 65-62

FEBRUARYFeb. 2, 2011 at St. John’s L, 58-56 Feb. 6, 2011 at Notre Dame L, 76-69 Feb. 9, 2011 Villanova W, 77-76 Feb. 12, 2011 Seton Hall L, 69-64 Feb. 19, 2011 at Syracuse 4:00 pm ET Feb. 22, 2011 Louisville 9:00 pm ET Feb. 27, 2011 West Virginia 12:00 pm ET

MARCHMar. 2, 2011 at DePaul 8:30 pm ET Mar. 5, 2011 at Providence 7:00 p.m.

SCARLET KNIGHTS ARE NOT TO BE TAKEN LIGHTLY


BIG EAST NOTEBOOK - FOOTBALL2007 CARDINAL CARAVAN10 AMAZING AND MEMORABLE MOMENTS OF THE 2009-2010 SEASONLOUISVILLE BASKETBALLWOMEN’S BASKETBALL

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MAKE YOUR PICKSLAST WEEK:

LAST WEEK:_____OVERALL:_______

KENT TAYLORWAVE TV

LAST WEEK: 7-3OVERALL: 52-28

TERRY MEINERSWHAS RADIO


GARRY GUPTONRED AND BLUE REVIEW

ION CHANNEL 21LAST WEEK: 9-1OVERALL: 55-25

RUSS BROWNSPORTSREPORT


FRED COWGILLWLKY TV


TOM LANEWDRB FOX 41


MATT WILLINGERSPORTSREPORT


HOWIE LINDSEYSPORTSREPORT


DREW DEENERWHAS PLAY-BY-PLAY

WKRD RADIOLAST WEEK: 6-4OVERALL: 51-29

Each week members of our esteemed media panel will try to prove they are smarter than sportscaster Tom Lane. Longtime

Louisville SportsReport subscribers will remember that our media members used to test their basketball knowledge

against a dog, but that proved to be far too challenging. The panel will battle it out by trying to pick the winners of 10

games per week during the college basketball season to earn the honor of top dog in the LSR’s Top Tom contest.

ZACH McCRITE93.9 THE TICKET


#15 LOUISVILLE AT CINCINNATI LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE#11 GEORGETOWN AT #10 CONNECTICUT UCONN UCONN UCONN#13 WISCONSIN AT #14 PURDUE PURDUE PURDUE PURDUE#23 VANDERBILT AT GEORGIA VANDERBILT GEORGIA VANDERBILT#4 PITTSBURGH AT ST. JOHNS PITTSBURGH PITTSBURGH PITTSBURGH#8 NOTRE DAME AT #25 WEST VIRGINIA WEST VIRGINIA WEST VIRGINIA WEST VIRGINIA#1 OHIO STATE AT #14 PURDUE OHIO STATE PURDUE OHIO STATE#12 SYRACUSE AT #9 VILLANOVA VILLANOVA VILLANOVA VILLANOVA#3 TEXAS AT NEBRASKA TEXAS TEXAS TEXAS#10 CONNECTICUT AT #15 LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE

JACK COFFEESPORTSREPORT


U OF L PRESIDENTJAMES RAMSEY


JEFF WAFFORDSPORTSREPORT


LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE CINCINNATI LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLEUCONN UCONN UCONN UCONN UCONN UCONN UCONN GEORGETOWN UCONN UCONNPURDUE PURDUE PURDUE PURDUE WISCONSIN PURDUE PURDUE PURDUE PURDUE PURDUE

VANDERBILT GEORGIA VANDERBILT VANDERBILT GEORGIA VANDERBILT GEORGIA VANDERBILT VANDERBILT VANDERBILTPITTSBURGH ST. JOHN’S PITTSBURGH PITTSBURGH ST. JOHN’S PITTSBURGH PITTSBURGH PITTSBURGH PITTSBURGH PITTSBURGH

WEST VIRGINIA WEST VIRGINIA WEST VIRGINIA WEST VIRGINIA NOTRE DAME WEST VIRGINIA NOTRE DAME NOTRE DAME WEST VIRGINIA WEST VIRGINIA OHIO STATE PURDUE OHIO STATE OHIO STATE OHIO STATE OHIO STATE OHIO STATE OHIO STATE OHIO STATE OHIO STATEVILLANOVA VILLANOVA VILLANOVA VILLANOVA VILLANOVA SYRACUSE VILLANOVA VILLANOVA VILLANOVA VILLANOVA

TEXAS TEXAS TEXAS TEXAS TEXAS TEXAS NEBRASKA TEXAS TEXAS TEXAS LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE UCONN LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE

DEB HARBSMEIERWHAS TV TEAM


AL PARRISHPARRISH HOUSE

80 UNDER 80LAST WEEK: 7-3OVERALL: 56-24

TONY CRUISEWHAS RADIO


LACHLAN MCLEANWHAS RADIO


DAVE JENNINGSWHAS RADIO


PAUL ROGERSWHAS RADIO TEAM


TONY VANETTIAFTERNOON UNDERDOGS

WKRD RADIOLAST WEEK: 6-4OVERALL: 52-28

LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE UCONN UCONN UCONN UCONN UCONN UCONN UCONN PURDUE PURDUE PURDUE PURDUE PURDUE PURDUE WISCONSIN VANDERBILT VANDERBILT GEORGIA VANDERBILT VANDERBILT VANDERBILT GEORGIA PITTSBURGH ST. JOHN’S PITTSBURGH PITTSBURGH PITTSBURGH PITTSBURGH ST. JOHN’S NOTRE DAME NOTRE DAME WEST VIRGINIA WEST VIRGINIA WEST VIRGINIA WEST VIRGINIA NOTRE DAME OHIO STATE OHIO STATE PURDUE OHIO STATE OHIO STATE OHIO STATE OHIO STATE VILLANOVA VILLANOVA VILLANOVA VILLANOVA VILLANOVA VILLANOVA VILLANOVA TEXAS TEXAS TEXAS TEXAS TEXAS TEXAS TEXAS LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE LOUISVILLE

WATCHOUT

Louisville’s players said a few quick motivating words before Louisville’s players said a few quick motivating words before breaking the huddle before Saturday’s win over No. 12 breaking the huddle before Saturday’s win over No. 12 Syracuse. - photo by Shelley FellerSyracuse. - photo by Shelley Feller

INSIDE THE HUDDLE

Junior Kyle Kuric almost got a face full of net as he scored two of Junior Kyle Kuric almost got a face full of net as he scored two of his 23 points against the Orange Saturday. - photo by Shelley Fellerhis 23 points against the Orange Saturday. - photo by Shelley Feller


2007 CARDINAL CARAVAN

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LOUISVILLE BASKETBALL

CLOSE-KNIT, EGOLESS CARDS HAVE PITINO ‘SUPER EXCITED’CLOSE-KNIT, EGOLESS CARDS HAVE PITINO ‘SUPER EXCITED’

By Russ BrownBefore his University of Louisville basket-

ball team left town last Tuesday night for Wednesday’s Big East game against Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., Rick Pitino swears he got a call from a good friend with a bad prediction.

“He told me, ‘Outside of Providence, I don’t see another win for you,’” the UofL coach recalled. “I hung up on him.”

Then Pitino looked at the Cardinals’ up-coming schedule, which featured fi ve teams in the top 15 of the RPI.

“And you understand where he was com-ing from,” he said. “You can’t think that

way, but what’s coming up schedule-wise is kind of incredible.”

UofL has already proven the caller wrong. The No.15/16 Cards (19-6) did lose at No. 8 Notre Dame, 89-79 in overtime, but they bounced back to beat No. 12/13 Syracuse 73-69 on Saturday. Picked to fi nish eighth in the Big East even before its rash of injuries, UofL heads into the last six games of the regular season in fourth place in the league at 8-4, a half-game behind Georgetown (9-4) and within striking distance of second-place Notre Dame (10-3).

Going into the season, Pitino cautioned UofL fans that this might not be a good year, preparing them for the worst. He warned that the best seasons were to come, when this inexperienced group matured and was joined next year by one of the nation’s top recruiting class.

But three-fourths of the way through this season it’s beginning to look as if the future is now for the Cards. After the vic-tory over Syracuse, Pitino was almost in a giddy mood, acting as if he can’t wait to see where UofL winds up in the conference and how its postseason prospects pan out.

“I am super excited to be 4 for 4 in the (three-game) segments,” he said. “Super excited. It’s a heck of an accomplishment. I’m real proud of our guys -- great team to coach, great group of guys. I’m really, re-ally excited. In 10 years here, I’ve had an NCAA Final Four team (2005), the number 1 seed (2009).... I think this is the fans’ fa-vorite team. The reason is they don’t get down, they just keep playing hard. You can see they are not as talented as the number 1 seed, you can see they’re not as good as some of the players on the Final Four team. But you can see the heart every time they play, whether they’re up or down. We really haven’t had a bad Big East game.

“When have you seen this team have a down night? They battle Notre Dame all the way, they battle on the road and win in dou-ble overtime against Connecticut, they’re up

against Villanova, they battled Providence. They fi ght until the end, and it’s really fun for a coach to coach these guys. I know the whole staff feels that way.”

When he mentioned segments, Pitino was referring to the three-game blocks he has used to keep his players focused during the 18-game league schedule. He was hop-ing to go at least 2-1 in each, which is what UofL has done. His fears about going 1-2 or being swept haven’t materialized.

Without a superstar, without a single player who could be considered an NBA prospect at this point, without a player in the top 10 in scoring in the conference or in the top 20 in rebounding and battered by one injury after another, the Cards have somehow managed to keep competing and keep winning.

“This team is so much fun to coach be-cause of their heart,” Pitino said. “They fi ght back when they’re down. They’re not afraid.”

They also have no ego, he says, pointing to another major factor in their success.

“Every group of guys you coach today, the number one weakness is ego. Ego is the greatest killer of potential there is in every aspect of life. We keep talking about the 12-step program for alcoholics, and I read a great quote, ‘Ego is edging God out.’ That’s what ego is, and we keep talking about that.

“When they don’t play with an ego, ev-erybody just plays with each other. We have no ego. Truly, there’s the old cliche’ of play-ing for the name on the front of your jersey, and I’ve only coached one other team in my life, Providence in ‘87, that plays as much for the name on the front of their jersey. I think that’s why the fans love this team so much. It just shouts out at you that they’re playing for Louisville, they don’t care about themselves.”

The NBA? There’s never a mention of those initials in the locker room, according to junior forward Kyle Kuric and sophomore

guard Peyton Siva.“I haven’t heard anyone talk about it,”

Kuric said. “Maybe they’re talking to them-selves.”

Said Siva: “Nobody’s focused on the NBA or leaving early. It’s very important becausenobody’s trying to go out and prove any-thing about themselves. It’s all about theteam this year, everybody accepting theirrole, and that makes for great chemistry.

“We’re just focused on winning now, and not about the future. It comes from Coach Ptelling us and keeping us humble. That’s themain thing about this team -- everybody ishumble and grounded.”

No one mentions any names, but it’s ob-vious that wasn’t always the case and thatthe current players feel that some of theirformer teammates were more concernedabout their pro prospects than winninggames at UofL.

Samardo Samuels left after his sopho-more season to turn pro, and UofL also lostthree seniors from last year’s club -- guardsEdgar Sosa and Jerry Smith and forwardReggie Delk.

“I’m not going to knock the previous two years, but this team is more of a team,”Kuric said. “We’ve come together, we likeeach other on and off the court and we’reall here for the same reason. Nobody wantsto leave early.”

Senior forward/center George Goode played on UofL’s top-seeded 2009 team andhas been teammates with fi rst-round NBAdraft picks Terrence Williams and Earl Clark,plus Samuels and others. He says this teamis closer, shares common goals and is moreteam-oriented than any of the others.

“Since I’ve been here there’s always been somebody about to go to the NBA,” he said.“Nobody on this team is worried about thedraft, just winning college basketball games.That’s different.”

It’s also a reason why Pitino and the fans are having so much fun, and why the Cardsare having such surprising success.

feb. 16, 2011 issue

Documents

louisville sportsreport

louisville sports news

russ brown4 kuric

t s i n s i d e4 recruiting

russ brown8

howie lindsey11

rick cushing18

shelley fellerdesign