• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Morgan St.-Louisville Preview

Nov 22, 2009 - 3:37 AM By NICOLINO DIBENEDETTO STATS Writer

Morgan State (3-0) at Louisville (1-0), 1:00 p.m. EDT

Despite Louisville's third consecutive 2-0 start, Rick Pitino isn't pleased.

A quick turnaround also has the coach wondering if his 20th-ranked Cardinals have enough time to prepare for its next contest.

They continue their stretch of three games in as many days Sunday when they face unbeaten Morgan State for the first time in almost 11 years.

Louisville opened the season with a 96-66 win over Arkansas on Tuesday, then defeated East Tennessee State 69-56 on Saturday. After this contest, the Cardinals will host Appalachian State on Monday.

Pitino feels his young team - which includes 10 freshmen and sophomores - could use more time to make adjustments than this weekend's schedule allows.

"We want time to teach," he said. "There's nothing I can do about it. You want time to teach with all the mistakes you make, but you've got to get ready for the next opponent. That's the disappointing thing about these types of games."

Pitino was disappointed with his Cardinals on Saturday, when they won despite shooting 26.4 percent from the floor and committing 14 turnovers.

"We struggled a lot shooting the basketball (Saturday), because we took challenged shots, something we've been trying to stay away from," Pitino said.

"We were playing good defense. We're getting to the offensive glass, we're just painfully young. We're making a lot of young mistakes."

One of the current Cardinals with experience, Edgar Sosa is looking for another strong performance. The senior guard was a consistent force for Louisville on Saturday, shooting 5 for 9 from the field - 4 for 8 on 3-pointers - for 16 points while collecting three steals. That came after he had 12 points with seven assists in the season opener.

Sosa averaged 7.3 points and 2.4 assists last season.

The Cardinals are 15-7 in the month of November during Pitino's nine seasons, losing once each year except in 2005, when they played only once in the opening month. Last year, Louisville was ranked No. 3 before getting upset by Western Kentucky.

Louisville easily won its only previous meeting with Morgan State (3-0), 95-47 at home Dec. 30, 1998.

The Golden Bears won last season's Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament to reach the NCAA tournament for the first time, but lost to then-No. 7 Oklahoma in the opening round. They are 0-2 against ranked opponents during coach Todd Bozeman's three-plus seasons at the school.

Guard Reggie Holmes has personally made certain Morgan State has opened 2009-10 successfully. The team is unbeaten through three games for the first time since 1978, and the senior has spurred that impressive start by averaging 25.3 points and 5.7 rebounds. He averaged 16.8 points and 5.5 rebounds last season.

Like Louisville, the Golden Bears are coming off a victory over East Tennessee State. Holmes had a career-high 30 points while adding five rebounds and three steals Thursday to lead Morgan State to a 72-61 win.

"Reggie is really playing well, which is a good thing because this is his team," Bozeman said. "He leads our team, so we expect that from him. But overall we just have to get better defensively."