LOUISVILLE KEEPS BIG EAST TITLE HOPES ALIVE

February 24, 2009


There was a lot riding on last night' 'Big Monday' showdown in the Nation's Capital between Georgetown and Louisville. With the Cards able to but away the Georgetown in a 76-58 decision, Louisville Carves Out It's Slice of the Big East Lead (Kentucky.com) and Yet Another Home Loss for the Hoyas (Washington Times) could spell doom for their NCAA Tournament chances.

In front of 12, 653 fans in the Verizon Center, Louisville hands the Hoyas their ninth loss in 11 games as the Cards Get in the Zone and Stifles Georgetown (Louisville Courier-Journal). The win had to be a small amount of revenge for UL as the Hoyas can't Play Spoiler this Time (Louisville Courier-Journal) in the Cards quest for the Big East regular season title. Last season, Georgetown upended Louisville 55-52 in the regular season finale to take the regular season title from the Cards, a game tap Rick Pitino did not show his team until Sunday night, reminding them how they felt losing that game to the Hoyas.

The motivation worked as Louisville came out strong out of the gates as Georgetown looked anything but a team with their season on the line. The Hoyas were flat and Louisville connected on their first nine field goal attempts to build an early 26-13 lead and go into halftime leading 41-31, only after a 7-0 run by the Hoyas in the last three-minutes of the half showed the first signs of life of any opposition to a Louisville win.

After a Jesse Sapp basket cut the lead to 41-33 early in the second half, Georgetown never really threatened any more as the Cards were able to hold them at an arm's length or more through the rest of the game.

Junior Earl Clark had 22 points and 8 rebounds in the win while senior Terrence Williams, as usual, did a little bit of everything as he scored 10 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and doled out 7 assists.

Louisville is now 13-2 in the Big East and has home games with Seton Hall and Marquette before closing the season at West Virginia before heading off to the 2009 Big East Tournament.