LOUISVILLE OUTCLASSED BY #1

February 3, 2009

Maybe this No. 1 has some staying power. Since North Carolina lost to Boston College back on January 4th, Pittsburgh, Wake Forest and Duke have took turns being the top ranked team in the country, with the latter two last just a week. Last night, Connecticut showed that the Huskies are #1 in the Poll and on the Court (Louisville Courier-Journal) in a 68-51 road win at Louisville.

The Cards had ended one previously No.1 run when they beat Pittsburgh, 69-63, at Freedom Hall last month, but This Time the Top Dogs Pull Rank on the Cards (Courier-Journal) with frontcourt intimidators Hasheem Thabeet and Jeff Adrien setting the tone in the paint.

Adrien and Thabeet Shut Down the Cardinals (Waterbury Rep-Am) limiting Earl Clark to 2-16 shooting for five points and holding Samardo Samuels scoreless. They also led the way offensively with Adrien collecting 18 points and Thabeet scored 14, adding 11 rebounds and 4 blocked shots.

Despite coming off his best game since returning to the team against PC on Saturday, Stanley Robinson logged just two minutes of action against the Cards as Jim Calhoun opted to stick with a better ball-handling combination against the UL full court press and the move paid dividends as the Pressure Doesn't Disrupt the Huskies (Hartford Courant).

The best way to combat pressure is to prevent the other team from scoring, and outside of Terrence Williams' 26 points, the rest of the Cards were just 11-45 from the floor and 2-14 from the 3-pt line. Another key factor, UConn committed just 9 fouls in the entire game and was 20-24 from the foul line while UL, on their home floor, was just 2-2 in the game.

No. 1 UConn Lives Up to their Billing (Register Citizen) in their debut as the top-ranked team. Next up is a non-league match-up with Michigan on Saturday before a date with Syracuse a week from today.

Louisville will look to get back on track with a Sunday trip to NYC to face St. John's.