Monroe and Freeman Make the Road to the NCAA a Little Tougher for the Cards

The Louisville Cardinals men's basketball team came out firing in the first half. Edgar Sosa looked like Steve Nash, cutting to the basket and popping threes. Jared Swopshire looked like Dennis Rodman, snagging scrappy rebounds left and right. Everything that Louisville put up seemed to go in the basket. They were shooting a little over 50% while the Georgetown Hoyas were shooting a little over 30%. But there was a storm brewing. At the half, a deficit that had once been as much as 16-5 had been cut to 35-29 and Georgetown was winning the battle of the boards. This did not bode well for the Cards, who started both Samardo Samuels and Terrence Jennings for one of the few times this season. Monroe was already in double digits in points and was inching closer to double digit rebounds.

And then Junior guard Austin Freeman decided to go Devan Downey on Louisville. With only 5 points in the first half, Freeman put up an electrifying 24 points in the second half. Monroe ended up with 16 points and 14 rebounds to go along with 5 assists. The Hoyas found weakness in the middle, as many teams with strong centers have done all year, and ran much of their offense through Monroe.

Louisville missed some wide open shots and the team that took the floor in the second half looked nothing like the red-hot team that started the game. Senior guard Edgar Sosa ended up with 24 points, leading the Cards. Senior Jerry Smith took the night off again and Samardo Samuels decided to reserve his best games for when he plays teams that don't have a center. Terrence Jennings contributed 4 points in the 16 minutes played.

Another aspect that hurt the Cards is that Samuels made it to the charity stripe once and was 1-2 from the line. That pales in comparison to the monster night he had against the Haringodiless Irish the last time he played at Freedom Hall. As I emphasized yesterday, he needs to be the go to guy and he doesn't seem to have it when it comes to playing marquee big men.

UConn looms next on Sunday. A tough away game for two teams fighting to make it into the Big Dance. The fight continues and the road just got a little tougher.