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Preview: Louisville vs.
East Carolina
By The Associated Press
After a dramatic comeback
win over its top conference rival, No. 14 Louisville hopes to have
something left for East Carolina when the teams meet Wednesday.
Taquan Dean scored 25
points Saturday to lead the Cardinals' furious comeback from a 17-point
deficit in a 69-66 victory over then-No. 18 Cincinnati in one of the
most remarkable games in the long-standing rivalry.
The Cardinals (14-3, 3-1
Conference USA) got shoved around and trailed by 17 points in the first
half, rattled by Cincinnati's unrelenting man-to-man defense. Louisville
found its composure, asserted itself inside and showed more poise when
it mattered.
After Jihad Muhammad's
long 3-point attempt smacked harmlessly off the backboard to end the
game, Dean climbed onto the shoulders of forward Ellis Myles and rode
off the court, his mouth open in amazement.
``I knew my teammates
would step it up eventually,'' said Dean, who was 7-of-13 from behind
the arc. ``We've been in that situation before. We just looked at each
other and said, 'We're going to win this game.' We didn't look at each
other once and look down.''
Louisville overcame its
second-largest deficit to win under Rick Pitino. The largest was 18
points against Ohio State on Jan. 4, 2003.
``This was a hell of a
basketball game,'' Pitino said. ``We had to battle down from a major
deficit on the road and you have to have tough kids to do that.''
Dean was honored as
Conference USA player of the week Monday after averaging 19.0 points,
5.5 rebounds and shooting 62.5 percent from 3-point range against
Cincinnati and Southern Mississippi.
Averaging 14.7 points,
Dean is second in scoring for Louisville behind junior forward Francisco
Garcia, who scores 17 per game.
East Carolina (5-11, 0-4)
has dropped four straight, including a 76-64 loss to UAB on Saturday.
The Pirates had four
players in double figures, led by Corey Rouse's double-double of 17
points and 14 rebounds. Moussa Badiane scored 15 points and Mike Cook
and Tom Hammonds each added 11.
``It is the same old
story,'' East Carolina coach Bill Herrion said. ``We get off to a good
start and then turn it over a couple times and they get some easy
baskets. With 13 turnovers at the half, you are not going to win
basketball games in this league with that.''
Louisville has won five
straight over East Carolina, including a 61-54 victory in the first
round of the C-USA tournament last year.
02/23/07 10:56 AM
©2005
The Associated Press and Bonesville.net. All
rights rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Bonesville.net contributed to this report.
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