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No. 5 Louisville has easy time with IUPUI

Dec 8, 2011 - 5:15 AM Louisville, KY (Sports Network) - Chris Smith scored 19 points and Gorgui Dieng had 18 points and 12 rebounds, as No. 5 Louisville earned a 90-60 victory over IUPUI on Wednesday.

Russ Smith added 12 points, while Kyle Kuric finished with 11 for the Cardinals (8-0), who finished strong, outscoring IUPUI 50-25 in the second half to secure the win.

"We played well in the second half," said Louisville coach Rick Pitino. "It was very one-sided in the second half."

Stephen Thomas had 14 points and six assists to pace the Jaguars (2-8). Alex Young chipped in nine points and seven boards but had eight turnovers in the loss.

IUPUI is now in the midst of its second four-game skid of the season. But the team showed guile early, hanging with a UofL squad which improved to 8-0 for the second consecutive season.

The Cardinals grabbed a 23-11 on a Chris Smith layup midway through the opening half, but the Jaguars scored 12 straight points, pulling even on Sean Esposito's trey with 6:45 left.

The half concluded with a back-and-forth flurry and Louisville took a slim 40-35 lead into the break.

Dieng went 6-for-6 over the opening 20 minutes of play, scoring 14 points to go with nine rebounds for the Cardinals.

The Jaguars, meanwhile, were sharp from the perimeter, as Thomas hit two three-pointers to lead a 7-of-13 effort from behind the arc.

"They did a good job in the first half, and we did not do a good job passing the basketball," said Pitino. "We had 40 points, but a low number of assists because we had a lot of one-on-one play."

The Cardinals, though, grabbed a decisive advantage with a 15-0 second-half run. Chane Behanan's steal and dunk capped the burst and gave UofL a 65-45 lead with 10:40 remaining.

IUPUI failed to test the Cardinals down the stretch and the lead ballooned to 30 on Angel Nunez's layup in the closing minutes.

Game Notes

This was the second all-time meeting between the teams. Louisville won the initial matchup, 80-60, in 2004...Jaguars' first-year head coach Todd Howard was a walk-on guard at Louisville and served as a program assistant from 1993-94 following his playing career...The Cardinals shot 55.6 percent from the field but hit just 3-of-11 three-pointers.