HARTFORD, Conn. – Rick Pitino said it all early in his post-game press conference about the biggest factor in his team’s 73-58 win at Connecticut on Monday night.
“We did a good job of weathering a Peyton Siva storm with him out,” the Louisville mentor said. “Once he came back and we weathered that storm, we were able to play much better defense and much better offense.”
The first half of Monday night’s game wasn’t quite what Pitino wanted, one figures. Siva sat about four minutes in with early foul trouble, and while Russ Smith was scoring and Gorgui Dieng was rebounding, they were alone. Pretty much no other Cardinal was much of a factor, especially offensively, even though Wayne Blackshear had seven points. Chane Behanan was on a milk carton.
Perhaps nothing epitomized the first half more than the final seconds. Connecticut’s DeAndre Daniels got off a three-pointer with the shot clock running down, then teammate Omar Calhoun got the rebound with the Louisville team falling asleep as if they thought the shot clock buzzer was that for the game clock. Calhoun made the layup practically uncontested before the buzzer to make it 34-28 Huskies at the break. That was not the note the Cardinals wanted to go into the locker room on, especially after battling back from being down 29-19 early.
Then the second half came, Siva returned and everything changed. The bottom line shows what Pitino talked about, as the Cardinals held Connecticut below 26 percent from the field and forced 10 turnovers while shooting 60.7 percent from the field.
“I made stupid fouls in the first half – trying to play too anxious,” said Siva. “In the second half I just tried to play out there and not even worry about it.”
While Siva wasn’t solely responsible for Louisville turning the tide in the second half, he had a clear role in it. He got other teammates involved in the offense, more than his four assists would let on, and was a defensive spark. Suddenly, Behanan was in the game and had a big second half to finish with 16 points, nine rebounds and five assists (he had just two points and two rebounds in the first half). Siva also got his own shots in the flow, the latter evidenced by his 5-7 shooting from the floor.
While there has been a groundswell of support for Smith as a national Player of the Year candidate, Siva is this team’s most important player. The Cardinals will go largely as he goes, as they have plenty of talented players for him to make better.
“Peyton is the leader of this team, the senior leader, the captain, and he gets us going,” said Smith, who kept the Cardinals in it in the first half with 15 of his 23 points. “The perks of having him is what he did in the second half when we were able to jump on them.”
Siva has made significant improvement since he first arrived on campus. He played just 11 minutes a game as a freshman and looked more like a scorer than a point guard. He made a good leap as a sophomore and another one last year, and now is primed to lead this team deep into March. Already, he’s the floor leader of the No. 1 team in the polls as of Monday, but as Pitino noted, the important thing is to play for that spot at the end of the year.
The Cardinals appear to have what it takes to get there. They go nine deep, with plenty of length and athleticism as well as a combination of seasoned veterans like Siva, Smith and Dieng to go with younger talents like Blackshear, Behanan and Montrezl Harrell, who was under the weather and thus limited on Monday night. This team has also proven itself against a very tough schedule, beating Northern Iowa, Missouri, Illinois State, Memphis and Kentucky in non-conference with a loss to Duke the only blemish. From the standpoint of their body of work, this team has earned the No. 1 ranking.
Siva moved into a tie for second in career assists at Louisville on Monday night. More importantly, he made this team go like a true senior leader in the second half as they picked up a good road win. The Cardinals have plenty of talent around him, but no one is more important to this team than their point guard, and Monday night’s tale of two halves drove that point home.
