We find ourselves in yet another late season surge which has become common practice in Pitino coached teams. Despite the ridiculous early season losses are we always seem to end each season with momentum heading into the tournaments. It's pretty amazing how just a week ago we were said to be out of the NCAA tournament after a terrible loss to St John's. That loss must have really upset our players because since that game we are on a 3 game winning streak which was started with beating the #2 team at the time! We have finally played ourselves into position to determine our own destiny. However our final four games will be the toughest of the year as we have to face Georgetown, UConn, Marquette, as well as another game against a revenge hungry Syracuse team which will be a our final home game in our beloved Freedom Hall(red out game). In today's game we had our hands full with a Depaul team who clearly does not like sitting in last place of the Big East. I was very surprised at how good this team is, don't let their record deceive you. If it wouldn't have been for a Louisville surge in the final 2 minutes, the Blue Demons would have had a shot at the upset. However our Cards pulled through in the end. Led by Sosa and Samuels who played great in the final few minutes despite both spending most of the 2nd half on the bench in foul trouble. Sosa ended with 13 points and Samuels with 14, however my MVP of this game has to go to Terrence Jennings who played great in Samuels absence in the 2nd half. TJ ended up with 9 points and 9 rebounds as well as 2 huge blocked shots. With more playing time this season, Jennings is become the player that none of us knew he could be. I was also glad to see Kyle Kuric finally get the kind of playing time he saw earlier in the season. He is great shooter and out hustles everyone which leads to rebounds and forced turnovers! I do want to mention Mac Koshwal of the Blue Demons who had a great game with 26 points and 10 rebounds. Well like I said before we have set ourselves up nicely for a run at the NCAA tournament, lets see if we can take advantage of this position. Any thoughts?
GAME STATS
We beat a team would should beat. That's an uneventful occurence in most conferences but in the Big East beating even the lesser opponents is a big deal. We see upsets quite often in the Big East, so beat this team was big at this time of year. Solid night for TJ, as another example of our depth. Definitely a plus heading into March. Kuric's PT is down, but he makes the most of it when he is in there. He will be a big asset come tourney time
ReplyDelete