CARDINALS RULE
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Rupp Arena and its sea of 23,000 Kentucky Wildcat blue seats looked as if they were in an identity crisis, filled to the roof with red-clad Louisville fans, who’d invaded what is usually enemy territory to cheer on their Cardinals in yesterday’s NCAA tournament opening-round game.
A woman behind the basket closest to the Louisville bench held a homemade sign that read: “The Cats Are Away. The Cards Will Play.”
And so they did, the Cardinals, mauling Stanford 78-58 in a game that wasn’t even as close as the 20-point differential would suggest.
Louisville, with its in-state rival’s house looking so odd painted so red, showed its true colors while advancing to tomorrow’s second round against Texas A&M. The Cardinals displayed savage up-tempo play, suffocating Stanford with their full-court press and causing more turnovers than the 1985 Chicago Bears.
Stanford, too, displayed its true colors. The Cardinal, who ended the season with an 18-13 record, losing six of their last seven games and seven of their final 10, showed why they never belonged in this tournament in the first place.
Louisville, now 24-9 and having won eight of its last nine, rattled overmatched Stanford from the opening tap.
“In the beginning of the game, Coach [Rick Pitino] told us they were kind of shaky with the ball,” Louisville senior guard Brandon Jenkins said. “Coach kept telling me to turn up the pressure and we could have some easy steals.”
Those easy steals, leading to a ridiculous run of fast-break points (30 in all) for Louisville, had Stanford coach Trent Johnson feeling rather queasy from the other bench.
“This kills me, because I didn’t see it coming,” Johnson said. “I had concerns about our inability to take care of the ball, but Louisville flat-out was the aggressor from the start and that bothers me.
“This eats at me, because one thing we’ve been all year is the aggressor. It was very disturbing to play like this on this stage.”
Johnson must have sensed trouble early, calling his first timeout just 1:21 into the game with his team trailing 4-0.
It didn’t help.
With 5:13 remaining in the first half, Louisville was leading 41-13, still pressing Stanford into oblivion and rendering the rest of the game garbage time.
The Cardinals’ lead reached as many as 33 points (58-25) in the second half. They forced 12 Stanford turnovers in the first half, outscoring the Cardinal 22-2 on points off turnovers. Stanford finished the game with 21 turnovers. Louisville had an astonishing 11 steals.
“Coach [Pitino] told us right before the game that Stanford averages 14.4 turnovers a game – and that’s without being pressured,” Louisville freshman Derrick Caracter, a Fanwood, N.J., native, said. “We wanted to double that.”
Louisville nearly did and it had the capacity crowd at Rupp roaring its approval for the man who, despite his eight marvelous seasons as the Kentucky coach, is now the enemy around these parts.
“It was much different this time around, as opposed to feeling like Darth Vader all the other times we play here,” Pitino said.
SOUTH REGION Louisville 78 Stanford 58
