DePaul awful. What does one derive from a 99-54 win over a pathetic team? A needed boost in confidence, knowing there are teams who shouldn’t be on the same floor. Not much else, but this is obvious:
— With his injured wrist, Terrence Williams is just a shadow of himself. Nary a shot in 16 minutes. Rick Pitino says he’ll be healthy for the Providence game on Wednesday. Doubt that.
— Preston Knowles fearless and confident, needs to shoot and shoot some more. He doesn’t think about the shot, just puts it up there, expecting the ball to go in.
— Jared Swopshire obviously hasn’t been wearing those big shoes very long, clogging around like the neighborhood jogger. Trying not to look not cool while avoiding a sweat. Showing how good he can be only during unguarded and spontaneous action.
— Earl Clark will give up the ball in a split second when he’s challenged, whether he be standing, dribbling, catching or passing. Don’t mess with him, however, on those explosive bursts to the basket.
— From obscurity to starter, Reginald Delk provides some scoring potential while T-Will is unable to flick his wrist. He started at Mississippi State. Be surprised if he gets in the game against Providence.
— Samardo Samuels has a good mid-range shot, providing a much-needed option when his every shot on the block is being rammed down his throat. Jump, man, jump.
— T-Will needs to take care, no business being involved in major tumbles during practice.
Actaully, Pitino and the trainer are saying he needs to have some movement in the wrist each and every day to keep it from stiffening up. Plus he has tendonitis in that same wrist. I think we let him coast a little bit tomorrow and Saturday against Cincy. 20-25 minutes would be fine. Georgetown is the next game we’re really going to need him.
Of course now that Delk has a sprained ankle, it’ll be interesting to see who Rick tosses in at the “3”. A three guard offense against Providence isn’t totally
out of the question. They like to fire the trey, and not sue if I want Swopshire or Kuric out there trying to guard that far out on the court.
The obvious factor in all upcoming games is TWill and how his wrist heals. We can be competitive while he recuperates but to win the big games, we have to have him healthy. DePaul was a great game to heal our ND wounds but not the kind of game that will help us against tougher teams. I wish TWill would have stayed on the bench the entire game to rest his injured wrist….we have so much talent and they collectively can beat a lot of teams but we need TWill!!! Go CARDS!
I really like the idea of Preston Knowles getting more playing time for the Cards. Yesterday in the Hall he was a dynamo on both ends of the court. Less than 20 minutes, but was the most impressive Cardinal out there. Like Paul said..it was DePaul…so all of the Cards lofty acheivements should be taken with a grain of salt. Providence will be a much tougher test. Acoording to the Gospel of Rick, they shoot the three better than Notre Dame. That’s a very scary though. We’ll see if they can do it in Freedom Hall.
I agree. Earl Clark needs an incredible amount of work on his ball handling skills.
Some good points as usual, Paul. Their confidence level had to be very high against DePaul, and they felt like they could do anything they wanted. I’m with you on carrying it over to the Providence game.
It was good to see the Cardinals follow their missed shots this afternoon. Not that there were that many of them, but Smith, Samuels, Clark and Knowles all scored on putbacks after their own misses. Offensive rebounding improved also. Granted, this wasn’t a great DePaul front line, but you have to start somewhere. 11 offensive boards and 43 total.
A +11 advantage. Three point shooting was better than normal also. 99 points is a definite improvement of the sub 60 totals we have been putting on the scoreboard. All these things have to be considered in this light. They were numbers put up against the worst team in the Big East.
A similiar effort against Providence will finish the convincing for me that the Notre Dame game was just a freak and a fluke. The Irish were up against the wall. Had to win against us. They still have to win out to make the NCAA, in my opinion. They got by USF today. They are one team UofL would like to avoid in the Big East tournament for sure.