No. 24 Louisville cruises past Bulls, 71-57

TAMPA -- When Rick Pitino and No. 24 Louisville came into the Sun Dome on Wednesday, it concluded a ridiculous six-day parade of coaching legends in which USF played host to Syracuse's Jim Boeheim, Connecticut women's coach Geno Auriemma and Pitino, who combine for 1,986 college basketball wins.

That's more than double what USF's men's and women's programs have in their entire history, and gives Pitino the kind of wisdom to succinctly explain his Cardinals' easy 71-57 win against the Bulls.

"We have better talent," he explained. "That's what it comes down to. We have much better talent than they do. In a year or two, the talent will be fairly even. ... Next year they'll be very competitive and then they'll turn the corner. Right now, the reason we have more success is more talent."

That talent included rangy 6-foot-9 forward Earl Clark, who scored 22 points, including three 3-pointers, and freshman Samardo Samuels, who had six of Louisville's 10 blocked shots before a Sun Dome crowd of 4,827.

Louisville's depth -- nine players logged 15 minutes or more -- and pressing defense harassed USF's Dominique Jones into a 1-for-10 shooting night, with just one assist in 36 minutes. USF coach Stan Heath was most frustrated by self-inflicted problems, like his team's 14-for-29 shooting on free throws. Take away Jones' 8-for-11 effort at the line and the rest of the Bulls went 6-for-18.

"It's horrible. 14 for 29? That's not acceptable," he said. "Obviously if you just tack on about eight of those, the lead's a little bit different."

Louisville (10-3, 1-0 in Big East), meanwhile, didn't get to the line in the first half -- "We didn't get fouled," said Pitino, calling Big East officials "the best referees in America."

USF (5-9, 0-2) trailed just 49-41 with 11 minutes to play, but gave up a 12-2 run that saw five different Louisville players score. In one sequence, freshman Gus Gilchrist -- who had 11 points and five blocks -- missed a dunk, and guard Jesus Verdejo followed with an airballed 3-pointer, followed by back-to-back turnovers and a blocked dunk attempt by Gilchrist.

The Bulls trailed 68-47 with 1:30 to play, but the Bulls reserves scored 10 points in 39 seconds after both teams emptied their benches. Louisville's previous three wins against the Bulls had all been by at least 20 points.

Heath, 0-7 against ranked teams in his two seasons at USF, said he's learning the harsh reality of the depth of his new league.

"There's a lot of teams in the league that are going to have to live with this fact: We may play, and somebody else may play, a very, very good basketball game -- shoot it well, defend well, take care of the ball, rebound -- and still lose," he said. "And that's the problem with this league. It's so good. ... We can't beat ourselves up after a loss."

Comments

[Reality]

I see it is official. 3:40 can't come up with the guy that turned Gonzaga around......Don't try and flaunt all your knowledge and write drivel.

[Reality]

3:40......I think you may have forgotten alot about basketball or you are a new fan, or you are an ACC guy, or something, and sadly you could probably pull one off against most of USF's fanbase, but Mark Few? You might want to drop another name before him?? I will just leave it at that, and let you correct your mistake.....

Stan must go.

12:41

You are so wrong... I went to Maryland... i followed them all my life. You think because we dont have all the things you say we should just quit and accept whatever we have. You have no clue about college basketball. Look at what Mark Few did at Gonzaga... look at what John Beilein did at Michigan...Oliver Purnell at Clemson.

Now you also got me wrong on running Stan Heath out of town. No were did i say that; Moreover, I explicitly said he needs to get more fired up and if he cant show some fire on the sidelines then there is no way we are even going to compete... That is how you win these games against Louisville and Syracuse and UCONN... Right now we dont have the skill to compete with them so we need to leave 190% on the floor and that starts with the coach.

You think you know basketball... buddy I live and breathed ACC basketball all my life. Ive seen a University come from the depths of NCAA violation to go to BACK-TO-BACK final fours and win a national championship... i know college basketball more than you would ever dream of knowing, anything.

[David Weber]

I thought the effort level was good for a while, until it became evident that we couldn't stick with them for a whole game. Even with Crater and Mercer, USF wouldn't have really been a threat to win last night. The bigs are terrible. Not closing the deal with guys like Goins and Faber was a huge loss for the program, and pretty much doomed the team. Plus, going from Dwan McMillan to Justin Leemow was a huge downgrade. And of course, Akol was the biggest loss. I just don't see why an athletic 6'11" player would pick USF unless he has a serious flaw in his game. Otherwise, big time programs would be all over him. Akol was mainly attracted to us for our English language institute (which is actually a really good reason for someone to choose a college). So unless we can find a similar player to Akol who will qualify, I think Stan should look for non-traditional/prototype big men. Mid-majors have bigs that can score, but they're 6'7" or 6'8". We might as well take a chance on them instead of burning a scholarship on a stiff like Rivas (although his injuries seem to be the biggest problem).

Dres, are you calling Stan -a sack of potatoes on the sideline-? I don't know whether to laugh, or indignant.

I really get sick of the ignorant fans that have absolutely no idea of the perils, and difficult for USF in the BE in all sports, and the worst being hoops.

Stan's the best we're going to get, don't be a fool and try to run him off. The only cure for our ills is great talent, you can't fake great talent in the BE, BUT he still needs to have 10-12 players to conduct practice and a game so you see guys like Leemow and Rivas on the court, but we know they're short term. Stan has a good vision you can tell by the players he signed and grabbing Crater- who fits his offense to a T.

You're not getting better, our facilities suck, or fans suck, our funding sucks. I am still flat out amazed with got Stan. I like CRM because he was an amazing bench coach, and teacher, but i also realized his recruiting was bad and we would never get enough of what we need to get there..Stan can do that. Oh and for those that say his staff can't coach, what they've done with Ajayi- his development- has been pretty amazing.

[Dres]

I was sitting right behind Heath the whole game.... I have to say with his demeanor we are going to lose a lot more games than we should... he looks like a sack of potatoes out on the sideline. Also, Alex Rivas is terrible... that man deserves 0 min.... his effort is of a man half past dead... On top of all that... the Offense looks lost... there is nothing installed to even work from... Heath needs to either wake up or walk out!

Ari,

Ajayi isn't horrible, perhaps relative to some of the five stars he was guarding tonight, but he's got very good, quick hops, he's not bad at positioning and plays good post defense. He's not going to win any awards and his offensive game is very limited, but he's not 'horrible' except at FT shooting last night.

You want horrible, then we can talk about Leemow, Rivas, and BJ Daniels on the court. Those guys are truly not close to BE talent. Rivas is so slow off the court, he's not physical, he's tentative, his timing...there just isn't much good about his game other than the fact he's tall. Leemow, I won't even go there. He's good to rest Jones for 1-2 minutes so you can watch him dribble lost in circles, turn it over, and then sit, and BJ well let's just say it's so obvious on the court he's a football player that plays hoops.

What's bad on the court is the shooting. We're an awful shooting team. DJ has no quality long-range shot, Verdejo is back to his mid-season tenativeness, afraid to shoot anything, and Howard....our best long range shooter is Gus Gilchrist who is now .300 from three. We're also awful at FT shooting, I can understand Ajayi, lots of big centers with big hands that picked up the sport late are poor at it, but Howard, Verdejo, Aris Williams, Gilchrist need to look in the mirror they all took key FT's, and are to experienced and aged to miss so many critical FT's.

Steve, we'll agree to disagree on this point. If you try to beef up Gus then he's going to lose mobility, and that face-up game he possesses.

He needs to get into better condition, no one will argue with that statement, Coach even said it in post game interviews. If in the course of getting in better shape, and condition he adds a few pounds or loses a few, then so be it. But as it stands Gus is out-of-condition relative to the other players on the court, he's slower getting off the floor (hops), and a bit sluggish. You get him in a rigorous training program that he takes seriously then he'd shed 5-10lbs and look a bit more like Earl Clark, than Earl Heyman. Since he's already a half-step slow, out-of-shape, and not in proper condition the only way he should get bigger is if it is absolute muscle. He has a face up game much like Earl Clark, or Dejuan Summers, with players like that you want them slim, you want them nimble, you want them mobile and moving. You don't want them adding bulk because Gus is not an inside guy, he showed again tonight he's not comfortable with his back to the basket, he's a below average rebounder.

Nope, despite the fact he's 6-10 you want him at 3 or 4, and very svelt and in great shape to run with the smaller guys at that position. Exactly how Earl Clark and Dejuan Summers are today. Look at Earl Clark, he's 6-9 230lbs, but he is cut, chizeled...Gus is not chizeled.

[USFAlum]

Let's just go back to the Sun Belt!

[DELdaBULL]

Have to agree our boys need to hit the weight room.
Wife said "Number 24 gets pushed around a lot."
We need stronger legs and fingers. More comments from smarter half:
"33 has butter fingers", "Why do our players look so slow?", "Why did he not try to dunk that? See number 1 on their team dunked it, that is what we should have been doing", "We missed another free throw? Why is it called free if we can't make them?"
An outside shooter, a good point guard (one that is a threat), and a real post player or two and this team might be competitive.

[Steve O'Neal]

I agree that he is not a back to basket type of low post player. He has a sweet jump shot. I still disagree that he is "overwieght". Me and my buddys were looking at that last night. I was watching as they stood at the lane during free throws and Gilchrist doesn't have nearly as much muscle tone or definition as the other teams players he is going up against. Why would you want a 6'10" guy to be any skinnier than he already is? He can still beef up and not change his style of play and benefit from the extra muscle and stamina. All the players need to hit the weight room as part of their training. I guess we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one.

[Ari Hinkelberger]

All this sideline talk is funny, because i watched the full game tonight and outside D. Jones, we don't have one player on that team that can put the ball in the basket when we really need it. I am not convinced Jones can even do it under pressure.

The FT shooting was just embarassing. Len Elmore on ESPN2 said that there is no excuse for that. You can teach free throw shooting. I have to agree. Ajayi is horrendous. WE have 3 guys on the team that shoot under 40% from the line! I have never seen a bunch of guys that can't shoot.

USF dreams of having an of those guards from UL.

Two wins in the Big East would be historic with that club on the floor

[more reality....]

I agree Greg, and Earl played like Gus did as a freshman. Gus needs to work on conditioning but he can be that type of player. Maybe not quite as much range as Earl, but he's taller so he's just as formidable outside. With a shot like that from a 6-10 guy, and his ability to face up to the basket and make things happen will start to give teams fits. Against more traditional teams, unlike UL because they're loaded with athletes like Earl Clark and Williams, they will be forced to decide to pull a big man out of the paint to face up Gus, or go small and risk him shooting over top like he did to Williams a couple of times tonight.

It's up to Gus, he needs to commit himself, slim down a bit more, and get into condition. He does that and he'll be a help to the future of this club turning things around. With a running PG like Crater, and a 6-6 shooting guard with no range like Dumars those are the type of teams that win more than not because they create shooting opportunities and mis-matches on the court. There's still a long way to go but seeing Gus starting to emerge and knowing we've got Crater and Mercer on the bench and Dumars in the fold does give some comfort for the future. Now find an athletic bigman that can run and we might have something for the next couple of years.

[David Weber]

Can just have Earl Clark instead? Please?

[G.A.]

I was thinking tonight that Earl Clark is probably the kind of player USF would want Gilchrist to be in a few years.

[more reality]

Steve O'Neal, I was at the game tonight, and now it looks like Gus probably needing to lose 20lbs was an overstatement, maybe now more like 10lbs. But how about his face up game. Again he's not much of a rebounder but he showed tonight that inside 15ft if he's facing up the basket, especially on the baseline the kid is money.

If he slims down a bit more, and gets into better condition he can give us that mismatch type of wing-forward like Earl Clark who has long range and takes guys away from the basket and shoots over them or goes around them.

[Ken]

I'll be interested to see the minutes played and the shots and shooting %ages. Jones was looking tired late in the game, and wasn't shooting; Verdejo wasn't doing much at all. Gilchrist looked a LOT better than he did in his opening game at the Sun Dome (the last one I saw).

[Anon]

I don't know what the he.. is coach Heath waiting to play Gaby. In PR he scored 8 points in 6 minutes, he changed the Gaby and tonight scored 5 points, 1 assist and 1 rebound in 1:19 minutes. Changed the game again and Pitino put starters players back again. What else Gaby has to do to have some more minutes......