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Cardinals Pick Up Easy Win Against Bulls

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By BRETT McMURPHY

bmcmurphy@tampatrib.com

Published: January 8, 2009

TAMPA - It turned out the toughest aspect of Louisville's Big East opener at the University of South Florida was simply getting to Tampa.

Once the 23rd-ranked Cardinals finally arrived, they had virtually no problems, rolling to a 71-57 victory against the Bulls on Wednesday night.

Louisville (10-3, 1-0 Big East) defeated USF for the 22nd time in 25 meetings and the eighth consecutive time before a crowd of 4,827. UL has won its last four meetings in the Sun Dome by an average margin of 26 points.

"Right now the reason we've had good success against USF is we've had more talent," UL coach Rick Pitino said.

With less than 12 minutes remaining, USF (5-9, 0-2) was still hanging around at 49-41, but the Bulls went five minutes without a field goal.

In that stretch, USF missed all seven attempts, including three layups and a dunk, and committed five turnovers as the Cards built a 56-41 cushion. UL's lead grew to 68-47 before both coaches pulled their starters.

USF's reserves ended the game on a 10-3 run to make the score more respectable.

"I didn't really want to look at this box score because I didn't want to see what the free-throw shooting was like," USF coach Stan Heath said. "Louisville is too good of a team to go under 50 percent from the free-throw line and miss 15."

The Bulls, who were shooting 57.8 percent from the free-throw line entering the game, went 14-for-29 (48.3 percent).

"Horrible," Heath said. "That's not acceptable."

Sophomore Dominique Jones, USF's leading scorer, managed 11 points, but was only 1-for-10 from the field as the Bulls lost their seventh consecutive game to a ranked opponent.

"We need Jones to be a little more effective for us," Heath said. "Tonight it wasn't his night. Gus Gilchrist 11 points, five blocked shots is showing some improvement, especially offensively, but we have to keep helping him on the defensive end."

USF guard Chris Howard had nine points, five rebounds and four assists. B.J. Ajayi added eight points and seven rebounds, and Jesus Verdejo had eight points and a career-high nine rebounds.

Earl Clark (22 points, nine rebounds) paced the Cardinals, who didn't arrive in Tampa until late Tuesday night. An engine caught fire on their initial charter flight to Tampa on Tuesday, forcing them to return to Louisville and wait for a second airplane.

"There were a lot of mental breakdowns and that just shows our age sometimes," Howard said. "Some of the young guys and even some of the veterans, we just weren't mentally tough enough to execute the game plan."

Reporter Brett McMurphy can be reached at (813) 259-7928.

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