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No. 3 Louisville rolls past USF

Jan 13, 2013 - 5:58 AM Louisville, KY (Sports Network) - Peyton Siva scored a game-high 17 points to reach 1,000 for his career while leading No. 3 Louisville in a lopsided 64-38 victory over South Florida in a Big East mismatch.

Siva shot 7-of-11 from the field to offset a poor shooting performance by leading scorer Russ Smith, who made just two of his 13 shots for eight points.

Despite Smith scoring well below his season average, the Cardinals (15-1, 3-0 Big East) rolled to their 10th straight win by holding South Florida to 27 percent shooting and owning a 49-24 rebounding advantage.

"I have been trying to explain to them that defense wins you ball games regardless of what happens on offense," Louisville coach Rick Pitino said. "We had a real nice meeting at halftime during the Seton Hall game, and I think they understood it."

Chane Behanan, who missed Monday's win over Seton Hall with a sprained ankle, contributed to Louisville's dominance on the glass with 12 rebounds, while Gorgui Dieng chipped in 12 points and 16 boards for the victors.

South Florida (9-6, 0-3), which has dropped its first three conference tilts, was led by Victor Rudd's 10 points.

"That's a really good basketball team. I'm sure Rick had them fired up because we snuck out of here with one last year. They came to play. They weren't going to let something slip up again." South Florida coach Stan Heath said.

The Cardinals scored as many points in the first half as their opponents did the entire game.

Siva hit twice from behind the arc during an 11-0 run that pushed Louisville in front, 20-3, midway through the opening half.

A 9-0 run in the final three minutes helped extend the margin to 38-15 at the break, and the closest the Bulls got in the second half was 20.

South Florida went nine minutes without a field goal at one point, and the lead grew as high as 30 in the rout.

Game Notes

Louisville entered play sixth in the country in scoring margin (plus-20.5) ... Siva is the 64th Louisville player to eclipse the 1,000-point plateau ... Smith came in averaging 19.4 points per game ... South Florida has been outrebounded 134-82 in its three Big East games ... The Cardinals scored 22 more points in the paint (36-14).