Nobody had a clue how the Louisville Cardinals would play coming into today, after all the news on Chris Jones. Fortunately for them, they had their best performance of the season today and it couldn’t have come at a better time. The Seminoles were a 4 point underdog in Tallahassee but didn’t seem to have any confidence today. The Cardinals started out great and ended great to dominate Florida State
“It was a terrific win for us,” said Pitino. “This is probably the best team performance of the season.”
The 1st half was all Cardinals for the most part. They were hitting shots early and Florida State just couldn’t buy one. Montrezl Harrell had a couple ridiculous dunks again as he even dunked over a FSU player in transition. Rozier uncharacteristically missed every shot attempt but it didn’t matter. Gill came off the bench and provided a scoring punch hitting a few threes. The Seminoles looked to be back in the game with momentum going into halftime but failed to maintain it.
Xavier Rathan-Mayes was coming off a 35 point game against Miami (FL) for FSU, and was hoping to put a similar scoring performance in today. But he had 2 points in the first half and finished with only 12 as he got shut down the entire day.
“We wanted to take his legs out as much as we would, pressure him as much as we could,” said Pitino. “We wanted to trap him. We were going to make sure that we weren’t going to rely on him missing – we were going to play him really hard.”
The 2nd half was dominated by the Cardinals even more. Rozier finally was capable of hitting his shot as he finished with 10 points but contributed in the assist and steal column. Blackshear came on more in the 2nd scoring at will most of the time. Gill, Snider, Mathiang all had huge games for the Cardinals to give more hope going into March. Montay Brandon scored 13 points, and Bojanovsky added 11 points. There was no hope for FSU as Louisville went on to dominate the game.
Louisville 81 Florida State 59
Game Notes: Blackshear had 18 points, 4 rebounds, and 2 blocks. Harrell had 16 points and 4 rebounds. Snider had 11 points and 4 assists. Rozier had 10 points and 9 assists. Gill had 14 points and Mathiang had 9 rebounds. Brandon had 13 points and 5 rebounds. Bookert and Rathan-Mayes contributed 12 points apiece. Bojanovsky had 11 points and 9 rebounds off the bench.
Next Games;
Louisville - Notre Dame 3/4/15
Florida State - Pittsburgh 3/7/15