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CARDINALS

What we learned from U of L's win at BC

Jeff Greer
@jeffgreer_cj
CHESTNUT HILL, MA - JANUARY 28: Head coach Rick Pitino of the Louisville Cardinals yells to his team in the first half against the Boston College Eagles during the game at Conte Forum on January 28, 2015 in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.  (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – Rick Pitino feared this game.

Not because his University of Louisville basketball team was an underdog or anything close to that. But Wednesday's 81-72 road win at Boston College was always going to be a struggle, at least in Pitino's eyes.

The Louisville coach saw the weather reports and the blizzard that dumped two feet of snow on New England and wondered how his team's trip north would go.

He heard Virginia coach Tony Bennett, whose team is one of only two undefeated squads left in college basketball, describe BC as the most difficult team to prepare for in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

And he knew it'd be awfully difficult for 10th-ranked Louisville (17-3, 5-2 in the ACC) to replicate its 65.2-percent shooting performance at Pittsburgh on Sunday.

But Pitino and Louisville left Boston College's Conte Forum buoyed by an emerging, simple fact: U of L will go as far as its guards Terry Rozier and Chris Jones carry them.

"They've had good years all season, but I think, since conference play, they've been spectacular -- in a class by themselves," Pitino said. "Every bucket you need, where they come back in the game, they come back and make a layup or make a 3. Tremendous tandem."

That was again on display Wednesday, when the diminutive duo of dynamic guards dribbled through BC's porous defense, ranked 95th in the nation in efficiency, and dominated.

Rozier and Jones combined for another eye-catching stat line, similar to Sunday's. They totaled 51 points from 19-of-28 shooting, and they added 11 rebounds and seven assists.

"It's all focus," Rozier said. "We know how bad our team needs us to play well down the stretch. We play well off each other in practice. If you do well in practice, it carries over to the game."

They've played like that quite a bit in ACC play, and that has carried Louisville to five wins in what was expected to be the nation's most challenging league.

And on a night when All-American forward Montrezl Harrell was limited by foul trouble and wing Wayne Blackshear struggled to assert his presence much at all, the two guards carried Louisville to a hard-fought road win in a snow-covered arena.

They'll have to do that a lot this season. They already have.

Harrell's foul trouble. The big fella made a questionable decision that led to his third foul, jumping into a BC player on a 50-50 ball and committing the loose-ball foul. Pitino was livid with his star big man, and rightfully so. On a team that so desperately needs Harrell to score interior points, U of L can't afford to lose Harrell, and it did for nearly six first-half minutes and a chunk of the second half.

BC's Brown thrives. Aaron Brown isn't exactly a household name, not even in the ACC, but the BC guard scored 28 points on Wednesday night, and he did it in a lot of ways. He bagged open 3-pointers. He attacked the rim. He got fouled. That kind of performance usually makes a coach uneasy. The guess here is that Pitino won't be too thrilled about it.

Turning opponents over? One of the staples of Louisville's defense is turning teams over, but none of the Cardinals' last four opponents have committed turnovers at the rate they would like. That's forced Louisville to win with other methods. The past two games, it has been the Cards' shooting. Is that sustainable?

Reach U of L beat writer Jeff Greer at (502) 582-4044 and follow him on Twitter (@jeffgreer_cj).

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