By Charlie Leffler
St. Louis, Mo.-The last time Saint Louis and Louisville met, the Cardinals’ Reese Gaines dominated the scoring by knocking down 37-points in a 67-64 loss. On Friday night, once again against the Billikens, Gaines dominated for the Louisville by scoring 29 points, more than half of Cards’ total. And once again the outcome was the same: Saint Louis 56, Louisville 50. Bryant Northern was the only one other Cardinal to score more than five points in the game. The sophomore point guard finished with 10 points on 4-10 shooting.
Ugly does not even come close to describing the foul-filled, turnover-filled, bad-shooting game. But the 2000 Louisville fans in attendance should be used to that. Most games against the Billikens are not things of beauty and for the fourth straight time the story ended the same: with a Saint Louis victory.
With a large section of the 14,483 in attendance wearing red, the Cardinal fans helped create the second largest crowd to watch the Billikens this season. Pitino immediately noticed the fans when he stepped onto the floor at the beginning of the game. “Look at the Cardinal fans,” he said with a smile. It would be the last time the expression crossed his face during the night.
The hard-nosed Billiken defense was concentrating on shutting down Gaines but for the second straight matchup they managed to shut down the rest of the Cardinals instead.
“If we focused straight on Reese Gaines then the other players would have scored,” said Saint Louis’ Marquee Perry, “so we have to really focus on Reese Gaines and the other players.”
As a result, the Cardinals continued to miss inside shots or even find the ability to get shots off. Louisville’s post players went a combined 1-14 from the floor with Ellis Myles scoring the only post basket on 1-8 shooting.
“Saint Louis played another great defensive game,” said Louisville head coach Rick Pitino. “They’re very physical on the inside and you have to score on the inside in order to loosen up the outside. We were unable to do that. Their parameter defense was very successful because we had no inside presence.”
Louisville jumped out to a 2-0 lead on a jumper by Gaines and it was the only lead they had in the game. By the fourteen minute mark of the first half the Billikens had jumped out to a 10-4 lead. The lead stretched to 22-10 by the 3:38 mark as Louisville missed shot after shot. The Cardinals greatest accomplishment of the first half may have been in keeping Saint Louis from pulling any farther ahead. At the break the Billikens still only led by 12 at 29-17. The Cardinals missed 11 shots underneath the basket in the first period while shooting 26.1% and committing eight turnovers.
Coming out in the second half the Cards turned up the intensity on defense but still could not score. Louisville did not break 20 points until 16 minutes were left in the game. Yet, on defense the Cards did manage to force the Billikens into 12 second-half turnovers. But Saint Louis continued to play through their mistakes and hit big baskets when they were needed.
“I told our guys they (Louisville) practices against this every day,” said Saint Louis head coach Lorenzo Romar. “You’ll turn it over a couple of times but don’t get discouraged.”
Yet, it was not the Louisville press that was a Cardinal deficiency but their scoring. “You can’t shoot 32% and the full court press be a factor,” said Pitino. “You press on made baskets and we could never get it on. We got it on maybe four times the whole half.”
“It wasn’t our defense,” said Pitino, “it was our offense that was a major problem today.”
Offensively, the second half was the same old story as the first as the Cards only made four of 13 shots in close. And even though Gaines reeled off 17-second half points it was not enough for the Cards. The Billikens had an answer for every Louisville run.
Yet, even as badly as they shot the ball, Louisville managed to cut the Saint Louis lead to three with 26 seconds to go in the game. On the inbounds play, Northern fouled the Billikens Chris Sloan who only converted one free throw and the Cards grabbed the rebound. Down by four and with the clock winding down, Gaines drove into the lane and threw up a shot that bounced off the rim. The Cardinals tipped the ball three consecutive times, but just like all of the other inside shots during the night, none of them fell. When Saint Louis’ Chris Braun finally pulled in the rebound the Cards were forced to foul again sending the Billiken to the line with only five seconds left in the game. Braun made both free throws for the final margin.
Just as in the previous matchup between the two teams, Gaines impressed Romar with his offensive capabilities. “Reese Gaines is a heck of a basketball player,” said Romar. “For whatever reason he had good success against us. We definitely tried to focus on him, but when we defend we try to get up and pressure all over the floor. But if you’re an exceptional basketball player you’ve got a chance to make baskets.”
The Cardinals (15-11, 6-8) finished their regular season road games with the loss to the Billikens (13-15, 7-7). The loss destroyed any chance of Louisville picking up an at large bid for the NCAA tournament leaving them with no choice but to win the C-USA tournament if they want to go to the big dance.
