Louisville finally lowers the boom
NO. 3 LOUISVILLE 70, COLL. OF CHARLESTON 48
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The emotion of raising a national championship banner combined with replacing two key players from the team that won the title had No. 3 Louisville in a close game for 33 minutes against the College of Charleston on Saturday. Then came the boom. The Cardinals outscored Charleston 22-3 over the final 6:41 to pull away to a 7048 victory in the first game of its national championship defense.
“Our quality, that ‘ boom’ quality that we had last year came out again in the second half because we played like starving dogs,” Louisville Coach Rick Pitino said.
Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski saw it when Louisville shook off the grief of losing teammate Kevin Ware to a broken leg and ripped off a 13-2 second-half run that pushed the Cardinals to the Final Four.
Louisville pulled off similar comebacks against Wichita State and Michigan to earn the school’s third national title in April. They unveiled the championship banner for those efforts before Saturday’s game but were shaky at the start following the ceremony that Pitino wrapped up.
“We are very much like the Green Bay Packers. We are owned by our fans,” he said, choked up in the moment.
Preseason All-America Russ Smith led Louisville with 21 points and five assists. He said while the pregame pageantry was “special” it “threw everything out of rhythm.”
“We just had to kind of kick the rust off,” Smith said. “I’m kind of happy we got back into playing the way we know how to play.”
That style — pressure basketball on defense and attacking the rim on offense — was on display as Louisville’s spurt put the Cougars away late.
“It kind of just felt like last year when we kind of just boomed people,” said Stephan Van Treese, a fifthyear senior. “We just kept it going. It was awesome; the crowd really got into it.”
Van Treese had six points and seven rebounds, all in the second half, after picking up two fouls in the first 3:10. Freshman Mangok Mathiang added seven points and 10 rebounds in his collegiate debut.
Chris Jones, last season’s national junior college player of the year, added 12 points and five assists.
NO. 11 OHIO STATE 89, MORGAN STATE 50
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Shannon Scott scored a career-high 16 points and LaQuinton Ross, also starting for the first time as a junior, had 14 points and 11 rebounds for No. 11 Ohio State.
Lenzelle Smith Jr. led the way with 18 points and spurred a first-half spurt for the Buckeyes, who improved to 93-18 in home openers and 89-22 in season debuts.
Justin Black had 13 points, Ian Chiles 12 and Anthony Hubbard 11 for Morgan State, which was meeting the Buckeyes for the first time.
Sam Thompson added 14 points and freshman Marc Loving had 10 for Ohio State. Scott had seven assists to go with his 16 points.
NO. 15 GONZAGA 100, BRYANT 76
SPOKANE, Wash. — Sam Dower had 21 points and a career-high 17 rebounds to lead No. 15 Gonzaga past Bryant 10076 on Saturday in the season opener for both teams.
The 6-9 senior, making his eighth start for the Bulldogs, shot 8 of 13 from the field.
Gerard Coleman, a transfer from Providence, scored 15 points for Gonzaga before a sellout crowd of 6,000 at the McCarthey Athletic Center. Junior guards Gary Bell Jr. and Kevin Pangos added 14 apiece, and Przemek Karnowski had 10 points despite playing only 12 minutes due to foul trouble.
Dyami Starks scored a career-high 35 points for Bryant, including 29 in the second half. Alex Francis added 13, giving him 1,503 in his career.
NO. 16 WICHITA STATE 93, EMPORIA STATE 50
WICHITA, Kan. — No. 16 Wichita State had little difficulty dispatching Emporia State 93-50 behind 21 points from Cleanthony Early and 17 from Ron Baker. Fred VanVleet had 12 points and six assists for Wichita State.
Playing in his hometown, Terrence Moore led Emporia State with 15 points while Kaleb Wright added 12.
The Shockers cruised against Emporia State, an NCAA Division II team playing for the second consecutive day, by shooting 51.7 percent and attempting 22 more free throws than the Hornets.
Baker led the shooting effort by going 7 of 9 from the field and 2 of 3 from threepoint range while adding six assists.
NO. 22 UCLA 72, DREXEL 67
LOS ANGELES — Jordan Adams scored 16 points and No. 22 UCLA held off Drexel late Friday night in Steve Alford’s debut as coach of the Bruins.
Zach LaVine and David Wear added 14 points each, and Kyle Anderson had 12 points, 12 rebounds and tied his career high with 7 assists for the Bruins, who let an early 13-point lead dwindle to one with 2:19 to play.
Frantz Massenat scored 20 points, Damion Lee added 17 points and Dartaye Ruffin had 13 rebounds for the Dragons.
There were plenty of empty seats for Alford’s first game since taking over from Ben Howland, fired in March after a 10year run that included three consecutive Final Four appearances.