Rutgers University
Louisville
Rutgers Basketball Falls at No. 25 Louisville, 78-66
Feb 04 | Men's Basketball
Louisville, Ky. (February 4, 2012) – Despite 24 points from freshman guard Eli Carter (Paterson, N.J.), Rutgers basketball fell to No. 25 Louisville, 78-66, Saturday afternoon in front of 21,298 fans at the KFC Yum! Center.
Scoring a personal-best in BIG EAST play, Carter shot nine-of-17 from the floor and added six rebounds and three assists. Fellow freshman Myles Mack (Paterson, N.J.) added nine points and three steals for the Scarlet Knights (12-12, 4-7).
The Cardinals – who scored 44 of their 78 points off turnovers and second-chance points – were led by freshman Chane Behanan, who posted a double-double with 23 points on 11-of-12 shooting and 11 rebounds. Kyle Kuric added 14 points and Chris Smith grabbed a game-high 13 boards for Louisville (18-5, 6-4).
Louisville got off to a hot start, shooting three-of-three from the floor over the first three minutes to take a 7-0 advantage. Rutgers answered with a 12-4 run, capped by a Poole jumper from the wing, to take its first lead of the game, 12-11. UofL fought back to push the lead to eight, 25-17, on a dunk by Gorgui Dieng at the 9:25 mark.
The Scarlet Knights would not go away, rattling off nine of the next 13 points to trail 29-26 with just under seven minutes to play in the half. Fighting back-and-forth until the halftime buzzer, RU went into the break trailing five, 41-36. Free throws by Kuric gave the Cardinals a 10-point lead, but Rutgers scored six of the final seven points before the horn.
After trading baskets out of halftime, Louisville used a 6-0 spurt to push its lead to 10 for the second time in the game. Again, Rutgers would not give in, as Carter scored six points in an 8-2 run to bring the Scarlet Knights within three, 53-50.
The Cardinals would take it from there, busting out 12 unanswered points, led by Behanan with two scores. The Scarlet Knights would come as close as nine, 70-61, after a Carter left-handed lay-in with 2:30 to play, but could not overtake UofL.
Rutgers returns to the friendly confines of the RAC Wednesday, Feb. 8, to take on instate rival Seton Hall. The nationally televised ESPN2 game will tip off at 9 p.m.
POSTGAME NOTES
- Eli Carter pushed over the 20-point plateau for the fourth time this season with 24 points. It marked the team-leading 13th time the freshman has paced the Scarlet Knights in scoring.
- Carter posted double-figures for the 18th time this season.
- Mack or Eli Carter have paced RU over the last 18 games.
- It signaled Carter’s personal best in BIG EAST play (high of 31 points came against Florida).
- Rutgers swiped 10 steals, the first 10-plus steal game since USF (Jan. 1) and seventh this season.
- Rutgers moves to 1-10 all-time against Louisville, including 0-5 on the road and 1-6 in BIG EAST regular season play. The last RU win over UofL was on Jan. 28, 2005 (65-56) at the RAC.
- On Feb. 4, the Scarlet Knights fall to 2-1 in BIG EAST play.
- RU moves to 4-8 when attempting less free throws than its opponent. The Scarlet Knights were eight-of-nine from the line, while the Cardinals hit 24-of-32.
- The crowd of 21, 298 marked the largest RU has played in front of this season.
- With 2:31 minutes remaining in the first half, head coach Mike Rice was ejected from the game after receiving two technical fouls.
- RU falls to 4-9 when less than three players score in double-figures.
- The story of the game came in the paint, where UofL outscored RU 38-22 and 18-2 in second-chance points.
- For the fourth time this season, Carter paced RU on the boards (six).
- Jerome Seagears dished out five assists for the second time this season.
POSTGAME QUOTES
HEAD COACH MIKE RICE
On his ejection: “I vehemently disagreed with a couple of calls and got carried away.”
On regretting the way he acted: “You always regret when you act like an idiot.”
On the second half: “Sure (I watched the rest of the game)…big screen TV here at the Yum! Center…The transition defense and the help defense was nonexistent. We just couldn’t keep scoring basket for basket with them. We needed stops and we didn’t get those because we had defensive breakdown after defensive breakdown. Credit them, they came out and put pressure on our defense and we didn’t do very well. Whether it was containing penetration or rebounding.”
On Coach Cox taking over: “I put them in a tough situation. That is tough to deal with. They haven’t had to deal with that and they’re a young team. I’ve got a great staff. The guys did what I would have done out there. This team lost what we were good at – defending, being good teammates and helping one another. Really, one thing that I would have taken two weeks ago was that we had some toughness. Right now, we are getting out-toughed game in and game out. It is something we’ll have to fix.”
On Eli Carter: “He is taking it personal. It’s something I like and I want him to do, but we don’t have enough of it. There wasn’t a lot of purpose, it wasn’t consistent enough the way we attack things. It certainly helps when you have someone like Eli finishing things off. He certainly had an offensive toughness about him tonight.
On Chane Behanan: “He was a monster. He made so many simple plays with him effort and his efficiency. He had quite a game and he is a big reason why whenever we got close, he just willed them, whether it was a great offensive screen or a rebound, carving on penetration. He was certainly all over the place tonight. He had a tremendous, efficient performance.”
On message to the team: “We have to get better. It’s simple. We have to find it again, find the passion and the toughness that we had been playing with. Playing on the road, in the Yum! Center, against a good team is difficult. For a lot of those possessions defensively, I don’t even recognize this team right now. I have to go back and find them.”
ASSOCIATE HEAD COACH DAVID COX
On jumping in as the head coach: “Obviously, I wasn’t ready to coach at that particular time, but I’ve been a coach for quite some time now. Mike and I are very close. We communicate all the time. I know what he wants. I tried to follow his formula as best as I could. I allowed the guys to play a little loose, just so they could be comfortable on the floor. I thought they did. I thought they responded. I thought they played hard. Two things that killed us were Peyton Siva’s penetration off the ball screens and obviously Blake Griffin (Chane Behanan), who had I don’t know how many rebounds.”
On Louisville’s last run: “Game spurts. They are a team, Rick Pitino’s teams have always been teams that play that type of basketball. They aren’t afraid to take transition threes. They’re not afraid to get to the basket and take quick shots. That is what they did. You have to be able to respond better to those spurts. I thought we handled a couple of the spurts well and they just kept coming. It got away from us.”
On taking too many threes: “Absolutely. We hit a couple, but it’s funny because in the first half, the ball movement (was good and) we were scoring. We thought that was going to be a major issue against the match-up zone. We were scoring because we were moving the ball, we were moving bodies, we were sharing the game. (There was) a lot of penetration, a lot of interior touches before we kicked it out for threes. Then we started to settle. It might have been because they were fatigued, maybe I should have gotten those guys out of there sooner and expanded the rotation. It happens.”
On performances from freshmen Eli Carter and Chane Behanan: “Eli has been our leading scorer throughout the season. He is a tough, hard-nosed player. He responded exactly the way I needed him to respond when Coach Rice was ejected from the game. He was very vocal in the huddles, letting the team know that we can do this. He played that way. He is a relentless, relentless scorer. I think he turned his ankle twice in the second half. He ended up sticking it out. Chane – outstanding effort. I’ve been in the BIG EAST now coaching for six years and I’ve been a BIG EAST fan for 25-30 years. I don’t remember seeing a rebounding performance like that. He got every major rebound. He was six-of-six or six-of-seven in the first half. He was a man amongst boys. I tried to warn the guys about him and his physicality, how he would get deep, deep post position, but he just did what he had to do.”
On shock of Coach Rice leaving: “Probably so (there was a shock factor). It is hard to lose your leader, your head coach, but I thought they responded pretty well. I think they came together and responded well. It was probably more of a shock for myself, Coach Macon and Coach Martelli. We were trying to figure out what we would do without the captain for the ship.”
