Louisville defeats top Div-II program

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The Cards came out ready to play, holding off the Knights' talented three-point shooters with solid man-to-man defense all night. UofL led 43-30 at halftime and ended the game with a 88-65 victory.

Cards' coach Rick Pitino opted to start both Samardo Samuels (pic'd) and Terrence Jennings after saying earlier this summer that the two big's wouldn't be on the court at the same time very often. Filling out the starting line-up was the 3-guard attack of Edgar Sosa, Jerry Smith and Preston Knowles.

This more experienced line-up played well together in the first half, with guards Sosa and Knowles leading the way at the start. Sosa went 5-for-6, scoring all 12 of his points in the first half, while Knowles put up 10 in the first period finishing with 15. They helped to offset the hot start of Bellarmine junior Justin Benedetti, who scored 13 of his 21 points in the first half, finishing the game 8-of-16 from the field with five three pointers.

The player of the game for Louisville, however, was sophomore center Samardo Samuels. Samardo had his way in the paint against the smaller Div-II opponents (Bellarmine's starting big men were 6'6" and 6'7") en route to an impressive 18 point, 14 rebound performance, going 7-of-13 from the field.

Another higlight from the game was the performance of highly touted UofL freshman Peyton Siva. Siva, despite a thin 6-foot frame, possesses great athleticism and showed that off on two different plays: first, trailing former Male High School product Forrest Smallwood, Siva rose up from behind the taller player and swatted his lay-up out of bounds and into the stands. As if that wasn't enough to get the fans in Freedom Hall excited, Siva later followed a contested lay-up by Jerry Smith with a reverse-dunk off the miss.

Preston Knowles told the Courier-Journal:

"It was the fact that he dunked it backwards- that was nuts," Knowles said.