Louisville will host Georgetown College in a final exhibition tune up before their season-opener Nov. 17 against Hartford in the Las Vegas Invitational first round.
The Cardinals handled Carleton easily in Monday’s exhibition, knocking off the five-time Canadian national champions 82-49. In that contest, Louisville dominated in the paint as David Padgett went for 18 points and 13 rebounds, while Derrick Caracter posted 21 points and 10 boards.
Terrence Farley helped the Cards hold
Carleton to 31 percent shooting Monday. |
Georgetown opened its season last week with a 90-54 victory over Asbury College. Gordon Chase, a 6-2 senior forward, led the Tigers with 16 points and 10 rebounds in that contest. Last season, the Tigers posted a 29-4 record and made its 26th NAIA Tournament appearance, finishing third in the NAIA final rankings.
“We got exactly what we wanted out of (that) game,” Rick Pitino said of Monday’s exhibition. “We got a lot of work physically and got to see where our conditioning was. We wanted to work on our defense and we executed in the half-court and full-court offensively. That’s what stuck out more than anything else.
“Defensively we’ve still got a long way to go. We get beat off the dribble too much and foul too many people. We’ve got to cut down on the little fouls. We’ve got to cut down on our guards getting beat off the dribble cause that’s going to get our big people in foul trouble. But we did a very good job on offense executing and we didn’t turn the ball over much the whole game.”
While Pitino wants to see better defense, the Cardinals, at least statistically, did a nice job against Carleton, limiting the Canadians to 30.9 percent from the field and just 3 of 21 from the three-point line.
“We did a good job defending the three-point shot and sometimes when you pressure the ball you’re going to get beat a little,” Pitino said.
One area Louisville needs improvement – free throw shooting. The Cardinals made just 6 of 17 free throws in the first half against Carleton before settling down to make 11 of 14 free throws in the second half. For the game, Louisville made just 54.8 percent from the stripe.
“I don’t think we’ll be great – I don’t think we’ll be bad,” Pitino said. “I think they were a little nervous the first game out and a lot of them were in and out. But I think we’ll be a decent free throw shooting team.”