Louisville's Marvin Stone battles with
East Carolina's Gabriel Mikulas (51) during the second half,
Thursday, Jan 16, 2003, at Minges Coliseum. Stone led the
Cardinals with 23 points and nine rebounds in their 87-70
win.
GREENVILLE — After Louisville finished polishing off East Carolina
Thursday night for its 10th-consecutive win, any bitter memories the
Cardinals had of their historic loss exactly one year ago in Williams Arena
at Minges Coliseum seemed an afterthought .
What No. 15 U of L left behind in the aftermath of its 87-70 rout of the
Pirates was a little history lesson of their own, one steeped rich with
tradition and prestige.
In fact, there was very little red-hot Louisville (11-1, 3-0 Conference
USA) didn't teach East Carolina (10-4, 1-0) on this cold and dreary January
night. The Cardinals sizzled the nets from inside and out, in transition and
out of their halfcourt set, and were sparked by outstanding production from
a pair of superstars and a complimentary cast of reserves.
When the Cardinals' schooling of the Pirates was over — after senior
sensation Reece Gaines banged in 22 points and dished out six assists, and
bruising center Marvin Stone dropped in a game-high 23 points and pulled
down nine rebounds — the reality and disappointment had set in.
"Obviously we got beat by a much better basketball team tonight," Pirates
coach Bill Herrion said. "A much improved team from what we played here a
year ago."
"They're good — and we did not have a lot of answers tonight. You've got
to be so careful how you play them."
Clearly, Herrion's club wasn't careful enough, particularly on defense.
Led by Gaines (9-of-12) and Stone (9-of-11), the Cardinals proved deadly
from the floor, nailing 58% of their shots. That percentage got a boost from
a bushel of easy baskets, as Louisville dished out 19 assists while
committing just nine turnovers.
East Carolina didn't share its guests' good fortune, finding the home
rims less friendly en route to a 38% shooting effort. The Pirates were also
a dismal 4-of-21 from behind the arc.
"Our man-to-man defense was awesome," Cardinals coach Rick Pitino said.
"Our offense's distributing of the basketball was terrific. We kept finding
open people. We didn't turn the ball over, which was key. We got people the
shots they needed to get."
Indeed they did.
Regardless of who Pitino put on the floor last night, there never seemed
to be a drop-off. Ten Cardinals worked their way into the scoring column,
with nine of them contributing at least one assist.
The quicker, more athletic Cardinals were too much to handle for the
Pirates' man-to-man defense, which was repeatedly shredded by the U of L
guards.
"Obviously we don't have any answers right now for a Reece Gaines,"
Herrion said. "He's an NBA-caliber player. He's that good. He's hard to
guard, but he's been doing that to everybody this year.
"They do a great job of spreading the floor, they do a great job with
dribble penetration. They're so quick. That's what really showed tonight —
their quickness."
Louisville also demonstrated how quickly it could turn the Pirates' dream
of another upset into a nightmare. With East Carolina clinging to the
slightest advantage at 15-14, the Cardinals hushed the charged-up crowd with
15-0 run that spanned five minutes.
Pirates guard Derrick Wiley ended the drought with a free throw, but by
then it was too late.
"You start playing fast, you start shooting it quickly and not making
shots, then you play right into their hands," Herrion said. "That's what the
press does to you over the course of 40 minutes.
"If there's any positive to take out of this game from our standpoint, we
didn't stop playing. There was a stretch where we could have lost the game
by 40 points, if we made that decision."
East Carolina managed a second half run that sliced the Louisville lead
from 31 to 14. The Pirates thought they had cut that lead down to 12 after a
steal and quick basket off an errant cross-court pass, but the official blew
the play dead ruling that Louisville had called a time out.
That enabled the Cards to stop the bleeding and hold off the resilient
Pirates for good.
East Carolina was once again led in scoring by Wiley, who slashed his way
to a 21-point night. Junior forward Erroyl Bing added 16 points to go along
with a game-high 12 boards.
Even though another double-double offered no consolation for the loss,
Bing said the Pirates can't afford to hang their heads.
"There are 14-15 games left in the season," Bing said. "We can't dwell on
a loss too long.
"We're heading to Chicago on Sunday to play DePaul, which is a good team.
We've got to come back, get our heads back together and move on."
BOX
SCORE: Louisville 87, East Carolina 70
Louisville (87)
Player
FG FT PTS
Myles 3-6
0-4 6
Garcia 1-3
0-0 3
Stone 9-11
5-7 23
Dean 4-7
0-0 8
Gaines 9-12
2-2 22
Dartez 3-3
2-2 8
Northern 1-4
0-0 3
Naydenov 0-0
0-0 0
Whitehead 2-6 1-1
5
Brown 1-2
0-0 2
O'Bannon 3-8
0-0 7
George 0-0
0-0 0
Totals 36-62
10-16 87
3-Point goals: Louisville 5-15 (Gaines
2-3, Garcia 1-2, Northern 1-3, O'Bannon 1-3, Brown 0-1, Dean 0-3); East
Carolina 4-21 (Holcomb-Faye 2-5, Bing 1-5, Rivers 1-6, Mikulas 0-1,
Moore 0-1, Wiley 0-3).
Rebounds: Louisville 38 (Myles 11);
East Carolina 37 (Bing 12).
Assists: Louisville 19 (Gaines 6);
East Carolina 12 (Rivers 4).
Total fouls: Louisville 23; East
Carolina 18.
Technical fouls: Stone.
Fouled out: None.
Attendance: 8,056.
Copyright 2002
Bonesville.net. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to
this report.
