I. Renko is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report from Lexington after Saturday’s Third Round game between #1 Louisville and #8 Colorado State. Follow him on Twitter @IRenkoHoops.
Three Key Takeaways:
- Welcome to Louisville Basketball — Colorado State normally does a very good job of taking care of the ball, but they normally play Mountain West teams, none of whom could have prepared them for Louisville’s pressure defense. The Cardinals rank second in the country in forcing turnovers, and the MWC has only one team, Wyoming, inside the top 190. The Rams were completely rattled by Louisville’s aggression, both in the full court and half court. They committed 20 turnovers, which Louisville efficiently converted into 24 points. The only reason the Rams lost by only 26 points is that they shot the ball very well, almost 50 percent from the field. But the problem was that they only took 40 shots.
- When Colorado State Gets Beat on the Boards, It’s Hard for Them to Win — Colorado State is the best rebounding team in the country. Their offensive rebounding strength, in particular, gave them a real opportunity against Louisville, which doesn’t protect the glass very well. But the Cardinals did a tremendous job of keeping the Rams at bay, allowing them to rebound only 24 percent of their misses — much better than Louisville’s season average and much worse than CSU’s. And the Cardinals pounded the glass at the other end as well, pulling down 36 percent of their missed shots. As a result, they outscored the Rams by 18-6 on second-chance points, the game’s most shocking statistic. It was a full team effort for the Cardinals, with the starting backcourt of Peyton Siva, Russ Smith, and Wayne Blackshear combining for half of the team’s defensive rebounds.
- When Louisville Hits Outside Shots, It’s Hard for Them to Lose — Early in the game, the Cardinals were getting traction with dribble penetration. As Colorado State tightened up its help defense a bit, forcing the Cardinals to take pull-up jumpers and fire from downtown. That’s typically the right defensive formula against Louisville, which makes just under a third of its threes. But today, the Cardinals shot the lights out of Rupp Arena. Russ Smith led the way, hitting 5-of-8 on threes, but the whole team got in the act, knocking down several mid-range jump shots. It’s very difficult to beat the Cardinals when they shoot like this.
Star of the Game: Russ Smith stole the show, tying his season high with 31 points on 8-of-16 field goal shooting (5-of-8 from three-point range). Russdiculous, as his coach nicknamed him, was especially assertive in the first half, when he scored 18 points as the Cardinals pulled out to a 45-31. Each of Smith’s four first-half threes ignited the crowd and seemed to deflate Colorado State, which struggled to keep up with the pace of play at both ends of the floor.
Sights & Sounds: It’s one thing to play against an outstanding pressure defense. It’s another to do it in front of 20,000 screaming fans. The Cardinals faithful showed up en masse at Rupp Arena, turning this into a de facto home game on enemy territory. When asked after the game whether the crowd made a difference, Colton Iverson quipped that it was a “rhetorical question.”
Wildcard: Colorado State point guard Dorian Green had a big game against Missouri, coming back from an ankle injury that hobbled him in the MWC tournament. But after hitting a pair of threes in the first two minutes, Green missed the rest of his 11 shots and struggled to lead the offense against Louisville’s pressure.
What’s Next? Louisville heads up the road to Indianapolis for a Sweet Sixteen match-up with the winner of the game between St. Louis and Oregon.