LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Trey Lewis scored a game-high 24 points, but Cleveland State could not pull off an upset of No. 6 ranked Louisville, falling to the Cardinals, 45-33, on Wednesday night at the KFC Yum! Center.
The Cardinals improved to 5-0 this year, while the Vikings slipped to 2-3.
Lewis hit 9-of-20 from the field, including four three-pointers, and added five rebounds.
Montrezl Harrell led the Cardinals with 15 points and 13 rebounds, while Terry Rozier scored nine points and grabbed 11 rebounds.
Lewis kept the Vikings close in the first half, scoring 18 points as the Vikings trailed 26-22 at the intermission.
The Cardinals raced out to an 11-5 lead seven minutes in as both teams struggled to find their range from the field. Louisville extended its lead to 10 points (16-6), its largest of the first half with 9:20 to play on a Chinanu Onuaku tip-in, but Lewis scored CSU's next 13 points to bring the Vikings within five (24-19) with just over two minutes left in the half.
A runner in the lane by Andre Yates and a Lewis free throw cut the lead to two (24-22) before Montrezl Harrell had a putback to give the Cardinals a four-point halftime lead.
The Vikings cut their deficit to two points (28-26) six minutes into the second half on a Yates layup, but a 10-3 run by the Cardinals over the next eight minutes allowed them to take a 38-29 lead with just under seven minutes to play.
Back-to-back layups from Aaron Scales and Lewis brought CSU within five (38-33) with six minutes to play, but the Vikings would go scoreless the rest of the way.
The Vikings shot just .250 (13-52) from the field and held the Cardinals to 15-of-47 (.319) shooting. CSU recorded 10 steals, while the Cardinals held a 46-37 edge on the glass and blocked 11 shots.
The Vikings conclude play in the Global Sports Showcase on Friday (Nov. 28) when CSU plays at Marshall. Tipoff is slated for 8:00 p.m. and the game can be heard live on AM 1420 WHK with an audio stream at www.whkradio.com.
Cleveland State Head Coach Gary Waters Postgame Quotes
(Opening statement) "It's not very good when you look at it. Looking at the stats it was an ugly game, but sometimes you've got to play in those types of games and you've got to make sure that they come out of those things successful. Today we didn't, but I felt that we were playing probably one of the better defensive teams in the country. I think that's their strength, I think it's maybe Pitino's best defense teams he's had. Why? Because I think they all show intensity and they all play hard. When you've got that going, you've got a chance to have a pretty good season."
(On Rick Pitino saying Cleveland State made Louisville look bad) "I wish I could take some consolation in that, but I just think they didn't hit some shots - they hit some shots, they play a little bit better. That's one of the things I know they've got to work at, make sure they get the right shooters, taking the right shots. But, I think you can be off in a game if your defense is there to hold the opposition off, and that's what they have the ability to do."
(Coach Pitino called Trey Lewis, he thought one of the best point guards in the country, talk about his first half - he also said their goal was to wear him down, what did you see in the second half?) "They did, they got to him, and they wore him down. But, he's not our starting point guard. Our starting point guard is Charlie Lee - who has started for three years and he wasn't here today. I suspended him for six games and he will be back next week. Now we'll have our point guard back and I can put Trey back to doing the things he does. But he did a great job taking over for him and I thought handled the point extremely well today, under all the pressure. We only had 13 turnovers and I thought it was because of him and what he did out there controlling the tempo. If we got here and ran up and down with them I knew we would have a hard time. They score I bet you 45 percent of their points in transition. We wanted to keep them out of transition and we wanted to make them shoot the ball from the outside. Then we had to execute on the offensive end. Which we did sometimes and didn't at others because Grady had one point and he averages 15 points a game. Mason didn't have a point. So they did what they were supposed to do and shut down who they wanted to shut down."
(On being down four in the second half with multiple chances to take the lead) "We just didn't execute during that period of time. The positive thing is we can work on that. Those are things I think we can get better at and what makes me feel good about what occurred in this game was that (Anton) Grady, who averages 15 points a game and Marlin Mason averages 14 points a game. One had one and one had zero - that is never going to happen again. I feel pretty good that if we can get everyone playing at their level, we've got a chance to be a pretty good team this year."
