On Jan. 1 it was a 58-57 loss to Cincinnati in
their Big East opener.
Wednesday it was a 56-55 loss to UNLV in front of
19,314 fans at Freedom Hall.
"That was a tough way to bring in the new year,"
said UofL coach Rick Pitino, whose team won 15 straight home games between New Year's Day and New Year's Eve. "Our guys played
their hearts out at the end, but Las Vegas just
made the last play."
Oscar Bellfield's bank shot high off the glass,
over UofL 6-foot-9 freshman center Samardo Samuels,
put the Runnin' Rebels ahead with 17 seconds to
play.
But the Cards had a chance to make a final play
of their own. After a timeout they worked
the ball around before senior forward Terrence Williams got it at the top of the key with about
six seconds remaining. Williams came off a screen
and drove to the basket, but his attempt off the
glass missed with two seconds to play.
"It looked like a lot of contact to me, but it's
up to the referees," said junior forward Earl Clark, who scored 10 points and grabbed seven
rebounds in defeat.
Sophomore guard Preston Knowles led 18th-ranked
Louisville (8-3) with 11 points, while Samuels
added 10 points and seven rebounds. T-Will scored
nine points, but was just 2-for-15 from the
field. Williams, who also finished with eight
rebounds, five assists and five steals, seemed to
take the loss especially hard, not addressing the
media after the game.
T-Will's shooting woes were mirrored by his team. UofL shot just 29.6 percent (16 of 54) for the field, including 23.1 percent (6-for-26) in the first half.
Senior guard Rene Rougeau scored 17 points and
grabbed seven rebounds to lead UNLV (12-2), which
played without its best player, and leading
scorer, Wink Adams. The senior guard who is
averaging 14.1 points per game suffered an
abdominal strain in the Rebels' last game, a Dec.
23 win over Southern Utah.
It was no Adams, no problem for UNLV early. The
Rebels ran out to a 10-0 lead as UofL missed its
first 11 shots of the game.
Behind some hot outside shooting the Rebels led
22-7 with 7:50 to play in the first half. UNLV
hit 5 of 8 three-pointers in the first 20 minutes
against UofL, which came in third nationally in
three-point field goal percentage defense.
The Cards trimmed the Rebels' lead to 32-21 by
halftime, then continued to charge back in the
second half. Trailing 41-32 with just less than
10 minutes remaining UofL outscored UNLV 16-6
over the next five minutes and 20 seconds, taking
its first lead of the game on a pair of T-Will
free throws with 4:31 to play.
Neither team led by more than three points the
rest of the way. UofL took a 55-53 lead on two
free throws by T-Will with 1:44 remaining, but
those were the last points for the Cards.
Tre'Von Willis, who scored 16 points for the
Rebels, hit a free throw with 1:17 remaining to
cut it to one. Then senior guard Andre McGee
turned it over with 42 seconds left to set up
Bellfield's heroics.
The mood in the UofL locker room afterward was
somber, to say the least, very reminiscent of how
it was after that loss to Cincinnati on Jan. 1.
"It was the same exact feeling after that,"
junior guard Jerry Smith said. ""You can't put it
into words, guys just have to stay positive."
The Cards host archrival Kentucky at 4:30 p.m.
Sunday.
"That's a real, real disappointing loss for us.
Our guys are just devastated over it. It's a real
disheartening way to bring in the new year with
that. We've lost three games now, and we've got
the meat of our schedule coming up in a very
tough conference, so our backs are to the wall
and we've got to come out fighting."