Early, late runs seal win for IU

Rick Pitino was motionless, sitting on the bench by himself with his right hand held to his mouth. Both teams were headed to their locker rooms Saturday afternoon for halftime, but Pitino was still sitting on the bench, trying to figure out what had just happened to his team.\nA little more than five minutes earlier, Louisville had jumped to a 30-28 lead on the Hoosiers at Assembly Hall, where IU had not lost in seven tries. \nBut after a 14-2 spurt by IU, the Cardinals found themselves down 42-32. And Pitino was looking for answers.\nThings only got worse in the second half. The Hoosiers opened with seven straight points to build a 49-32 lead less than two minutes into the second half. From there IU would hang on for a 77-62 win.\nLouisville would get within six with just over five minutes left in the game, but the seven minute stretch before and after halftime that saw IU go on a 19-2 run was too much for the Cardinals to overcome.\n"I think right now we're trying to get away without a point guard and it's difficult sometimes during certain stretches," Pitino said. "Guys are doing their best and struggling their hardest, but it's been a struggle of ours at times throughout most games.\n"It's good defense by them and some of our shortcomings."\nDefense is what the Hoosiers planned to step up after the break. IU had taken a four-point deficit early in the first half and had turned it into a 10-point lead. But the Hoosiers (16-7) knew Louisville would come out firing in the second half.\n"We really picked up our defense. We didn't play that good of defense in the beginning of the first half," Tom Coverdale said. "We stepped it up and we're able to get some easy shots off of our transition game.\n"We knew that the first five minutes were going to be really important. A Pitino team is going to come right back at you."\nA.J. Moye and Coverdale sparked the run at the end of the first half. The Cardinals had grabbed a 30-28 lead on a bucket by Ellis Myles with 5:19 left before the half. Moye and Coverdale each had four points and Jarrad Odle capped off the run with a bucket with six seconds left.\nThe Hoosiers took advantage of being in the double bonus, hitting all eight of their free throws to help build the lead.\nThe second half began with the Hoosiers going straight to Odle, who had a career-high 25 points. Odle had a quick bucket, followed by a three-pointer by Kyle Hornsby and another basket by Odle, which led to Pitino calling a timeout.\nThe Hoosiers learned their lesson from last Saturday's loss at Minnesota, when they saw a 48-37 halftime lead evaporate into an 88-74 loss to the Gophers.\n"I thought this was a great game for us to play out of conference because we showed that for the most part, we learned from our mistakes at Minnesota when they pressured us a little bit," Coverdale said.\nDuring this stretch, Louisville was struggling to get easy shots. The impact of the loss of point guard Carlos Hurt to injury earlier this season showed. A highly regarded freshman, Hurt has not played since a 75-71 loss to Marquette Jan. 9. He is out for the rest of the season after back surgery.\nSaturday Louisville was relegated to trying to play one-on-one off the dribble or taking poor shots.\n"They played us pretty physical and took us out of our offense," Louisville guard Bryant Northern said. "A lot of teams are going to play us physical, especially Reece Gaines. It kind of took Reece out of his offensive game."\nIU was still nervous even after its lead had been bumped up to 17 with most of the second half remaining.\n"We've lost games like that before," Hornsby said. "We didn't quite extend (the lead) like we wanted to, but we ended up winning the game with the same lead."\nMike Davis said he knew that no lead would be safe against Pitino. The Cardinals (13-9) mixed in a 2-3 zone with full court presses and traps to try to change the momentum of the game. \nThe Cardinals did get some easy baskets, but the Hoosiers were able to slow them down, especially after Louisville was within six at 61-55 with 5:27 left.\n"There was no way coach Pitino was going to let them give up," Davis said. "When they cut it to six, we had to make some plays offensively, but we had to make some stops. We did a great job defensively down the stretch."\nIn the end, Pitino has gotten used to his young, inexperienced team going through tough stretches, especially against quality opponents. He knows things like missed free throws and scoreless stretches are going to happen.\n"They made some big shots down the stretch and we did not and that was the difference in the game," Pitino said. "These games are great for us in our building process. We obviously have a long way to go before we're at their level of play"