By Charlie Leffler
It was no thing of beauty as the Cards struggled to an 81-63 win over Tennessee State on Saturday afternoon in Freedom Hall. Yet, the most important thing for head coach Rick Pitino’s first U of L squad was that they did indeed win.
Against a Tiger team that used an intense press combined with zone defense, the Cardinals labored for any consistency. Even though Louisville did win by 18 points, it left the team and coaches little to be proud of.
One of the bright points was the play of sophomore Ellis Myles. Louisville’s hope to hold an advantage was on the inside. None of Tennessee State’s starters were over 6-8 or 185 pounds. Against such a lineup, it was believed that Cardinal forward Ellis Myles could be in for a career afternoon. Myles did not let anyone down by finishing the game with 17 points, three assists and 23 rebounds, 14 of which came on the offensive boards. Myles said he never even had such a night in high school. “This is the best I’ve ever done,” Myles said. “They was kind of smaller than me and I’ve gotten a lot stronger than last year. They wasn’t putting a body on me so I thought I could get a lot of offensive rebounds”
“Ellis is working his tail off,” Pitino said, “and people should get paid rewards for their hard work. He’s done that from the spring with his weight training, with his conditioning and with his play. And it’s up to those young guys to see why Ellis is playing so great. It’s because he’s mentally tough, he’s physically tough, totally bought into becoming a great basketball player. So, he’s getting his just rewards for paying the price. And he has paid the price. It’s not easy to do what Ellis has done.”
The inside trio of Myles, Luke Whitehead and senior Joseph N’Sima combined for 38 rebounds and 34 points. Junior guard Reese Gaines, who finished with 24 points, led the Cards. The Tigers were led by Garrett Richardson’s 20.
“The positive side of this is the play of Ellis, Reese, and Joseph,” Pitino said. “They got us that lead, we were able to run, and we were able to win the game. We’ve just got to get everybody buying into that attitude of play.”
Because of his intense efforts in practice, sophomore Bryant Northern started at the point in place of freshman Carlos Hurt, but both players put in a equal amount of minutes and neither played an outstanding game. The two combined for 10 points, four assists and seven turnovers. Hurt finished with no assists and four turnovers against the Tiger press.
“To be honest with you I thought we played pretty poorly,” Northern said. “At times I don’t think we had the right effort, our transition defense wasn’t that good, we didn’t handle their pressure well and we go against that every day in practice.”
Pitino dismissed some of the Cards’ difficulties on Tennessee State saying that the Tigers were a very difficult team to play against. “They’re constantly trapping the ball and they take you out of your offensive scheme.”
But then the coach wasn’t about to lay all of the blame on the opponents. “Obviously on the down side of things, we turned the ball over way too much,” Pitino said. “They took our opportunities away, made some shots and gained some confidence.”
Even though earlier in the week Pitino reiterated that this was a good shooting basketball team, the Cards finished the game shooting 36% from the floor and 58.8% from the free throw line. Louisville was 9-32 from three-point range.
“I think we can be a good shooting team if we constantly pass the ball,” Pitino said. “We still have guys not thinking that way. They’ll get it or they won’t play.”
“We all know our weaknesses, you can see it,” Pitino said. “But that’s not the problem, the problem is that we need to get thirteen, fourteen guys buying into this defensive attitude of never surrendering a bucket. They’re playing hard, they just don’t understand what defending every possession is like.”
The Cards will play an in-season exhibition game against Premier Sports on Monday night. Though Pitino does not like the idea of an exhibition game three weeks into the season, he said he was use it to his advantage. “We’re going to start all four freshman and we’re going to play them a lot of minutes,” he said. “We’re going to rest Reese and Ellis. We’re going to get the other guys a lot of experience.” Pitino said that he does not care whether they win or lose the game, his concern is with the young players working on his system.
