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Demons left blue Louisville goes to 8-0 against DePaul in C-USA play
Posted: Saturday February 19, 2000 04:55 PM
CHICAGO (AP) -- Louisville coach Denny Crum had a simple plan -- stop Quentin Richardson. It worked. Marques Maybin scored 17 points Saturday and Louisville continued its mastery over DePaul with a 71-54 victory, extending the Cardinals winning streak to five games. "We did a great job on Quentin Richardson," Crum said. "We tried real hard to keep the ball out of his hands." Even with the ball, Richardson, DePaul's top scorer at 17.8 points a game, had difficulty, scoring only four points on 2-of-14 from the field. "The shots didn't fall. There is nothing you can do about that," said Richardson, who had a game-high 10 rebounds. The Cardinals finish the regular season with games against Saint Louis, first-place Cincinnati, South Florida and Houston. Crum said his team is on a mission to finish second in the conference going into the C-USA's postseason tournament. "We'd love to get the second seed. It's not going to be easy but it's in our hands," he said.
DePaul (17-9, 7-6 Conference USA) fell to 0-8 against Louisville in the five seasons the two have been members of league. The Cardinals (16-9, 7-5) trailed only once, at 4-2, and took the lead for good at 21-18 on 3-pointer by Tony Williams. In the second half, DePaul got as close as five points right after halftime half but the Cardinals stayed ahead and managed to pull away in the final minutes. "You have to credit their athleticism. There are not many teams as athletic as these guys," DePaul coach Pat Kennedy said of Louisville. Nate Johnson added 15 points for Louisville and Reece Gaines had 12. Bobby Simmons' 12 points paced the Demons, who were 20-of-62 (32 percent) from the field. They had 18 turnovers and only 10 assists. "We had lots of layup type shots that didn't fall," said Kennedy. "When we get bad, we get very bad. Nobody played that well for us. "We've had lots of ups and downs this season. As a coach you rattle your brain. You practice the same, you prepare the same." The Cardinals had seven steals and made 57.7 percent of their field goal attempts in the first half. They took advantage of DePaul turnovers and cold shooting to jump out to 16-6 lead. Johnson scored nine of the Cardinals' 16 points. The Demons rallied to tie it at 18-all. Simmons capped a 12-2 run with back-to-back baskets, the last a 3-pointer. Louisville scored the next 11 points for a 29-18 lead. Paul McPherson kept DePaul in the game by scoring nine of DePaul's last 13 points of the half. He used a nifty inbounds trick under his own basket by bouncing the ball off an opponent's back, grabbing it like it was a pass to himself and dunking it to cut the deficit to 33-29.
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