Wrapping up Louisville, Part IISo much for the rivalry.
Louisville simply owned MU this season, doing what it wanted offensively and clamping down defensively in both games.
Monday's matchup was much like the prior one at Freedom Hall -- the Golden Eagles struggled from the get-go defensively, could get nothing to go offensively, and were forced to play a futile game of catch-up the rest of the way.
MU surrendered easy basket after easy basket early on against Louisville, a trend that's becoming more and more disturbing as the season rolls on. By subjective count, the Golden Eagles have gotten off to poor or at least slow starts in seven of their 10 Big East games to this point.
Even coach Tom Crean was at a loss for the reasons why following the game Monday night.
"No, I really can't," he said. "I really can't. I really can't."
-- Crean left no doubt that MU must improve defensively on the interior. But the defense across the board wasn't great, either, as the Golden Eagles registered just 23 deflections -- a low in Big East play so far.
"We just weren't active enough," he said. "We were a quiet basketball team, and when we're quiet we're not nearly aggressive enough."
-- Dominic James' struggles continue.
He was benched for ineffective play for major portions of the South Florida game last week, suffered through another bad shooting game in Cincinnati on Saturday and on Monday failed to start for the first time in 85 games after being hit with the flu bug.
James wound up playing a collegiate-low 18 minutes against Louisville, finishing with eight points on 3 for 9 shooting, four rebounds, zero assists and three turnovers.
"He came and he tried," said Crean. "He keeps working. He's been dealing with the injury, he's dealing with being sick right now. No question, he wasn't feeling well. But he came out for his team, and we just didn't do enough."
-- Wesley Matthews, who led MU with 15 points and has now scored in double figures in seven straight games, was asked if not having James in the starting lineup contributed to the team's slow start.
"There was no excuse for the way that we started," he said. "We practice so hard, we're together all the time, we're a close-knit group and you couldn't have told that tonight. It seemed like we didn't know each other. Everybody's got to play for each other and we didn't do that."
-- Dan Fitzgerald, arguably the team's best perimeter shooter heading into the season, has suddenly fallen out of the rotation.
After starting two games at center, Fitzgerald has followed up with 10 minutes against South Florida, seven minutes against Cincinnati and five minutes on Monday against Louisville.
Considering the Golden Eagles' struggles shooting from the perimeter of late, his absence is a glaring one. Fitzgerald has hit just 8 threes in 10 Big East games thus far, and is 0 for 8 in his last three.
http://blogs.jsonline.com/muhoops/archive/2008/02/04/wrapping-up-louisville-part-ii.aspx
