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No. 5 Louisville holds off No. 14 Ohio State

Dec 3, 2014 - 6:31 AM Louisville, KY (SportsNetwork.com) - Terry Rozier's clutch 3-pointer with 46 seconds remaining helped No. 5 Louisville hold off 14th-ranked Ohio State's late comeback attempt for a 64-55 victory on Tuesday.

Trailing by five, Ohio State received the ball following a Chris Jones traveling violation with 1:12 to play. D'Angelo Russell made it a one- possession game by making a pair at the line, but Rozier's timely trey gave Louisville breathing room for a 59-53 advantage.

Following Amir Williams' thunderous dunk, Anas Mahmoud made a free throw and Montrezl Harrell rebounded Mahmoud's miss on the second shot to force a foul and put the game away with a foul shot with 28 seconds remaining.

Wayne Blackshear had a game-high 22 points with six rebounds and three steals, Harrell finished with 13 points and 10 boards and Rozier supplied 11 points, seven rebounds and seven helpers for the Cardinals (6-0), who won their third straight game against the Buckeyes.

"We needed defense to win this game tonight," Louisville head coach Rick Pitino said. "We got a lot of situations where we knew our offense would be challenged by playing people we didn't expect to play."

Russell had 17 points and seven assists to pace the Buckeyes (5-1), who were coming off a 73-56 win over James Madison on Friday.

Harris' dunk a minute into the second half restored Louisville's 19-point lead, but the Buckeyes responded with six straight points, ending in a Williams' slam to whittle the deficit down to 37-24.

Marc Loving shot a jumper and made a 3 around Blackshear's free throw and Sam Thompson's free throw with 7:45 got Ohio State within 45-37.

Russell grabbed his own miss and put it in, then Thompson split a pair from the charity stripe for a 51-46 score as the Buckeyes crept closer with 4:19 remaining.

Jones and Blackshear netted back-to-back triples and Harrell's dunk gave the Cardinals a 15-5 lead eight minutes into the contest.

Jones hit another 3-pointer to ignite a 9-0 burst that was capped by a pair of Rozier free throws with 5:13 to play to extend Louisville's lead to 19 points and the Cardinals led 35-18 at halftime.

Game Notes

Louisville won its 31st straight home games against non-conference opponents ... The last time the two teams played as ranked teams was in 1989 ... The Big Ten still leads the challenge by a 6-2 advantage ... Louisville shot 19-for-54 from the field (35.2 percent), while Ohio State was 17-for-56 (30.4 percent).