Recap: Louisville vs. Davidson
Portland, OR (Sports Network) - Peyton Siva scored 17 points and dished out six assists while Chane Behanan added 14 points and 11 rebounds, as Louisville opened its NCAA Tournament with a 69-62 victory over Davidson.
Kyle Kuric netted 13 points for Louisville (27-9), which stifled Davidson's perimeter game right from the opening tip.
"We wanted to really pressure them without trapping to try to take their legs out a little bit, because they're such a great shooting team. If you let them have their legs you could be in for a long night," Louisville head coach Rick Pitino said.
The fourth-seeded Cardinals out of the West Region will next take one New Mexico in Saturday's third round.
The Wildcats (25-8), champions of the Southern Conference, are 11th in the country in three-point attempts per game (23). But Davidson, which shoots the trey at a 33.9 percent clip, was just 4-of-19 from beyond the arc and missed 13 consecutive three-pointers at one point in the contest.
"Normally we shoot three's at a higher rate, we shoot from the field at a higher rate. I think it was a combination of Louisville's great defense and us missing shots. There were several times we had wide open looks and just didn't knock them down," Davidson head coach Bob McKillop said.
SoCon player of the year Jake Cohen had 24 points and 10 rebounds to lead Davidson, which made its 11th appearance in the tourney and first since 2008, when Stephen Curry improbably led the school to the Elite Eight.
While Davidson was in the midst of a 7:01 field-goal drought, Kuric scored four points during a quick 8-1 spurt by Louisville, giving the Cardinals a 22-16 edge with 7:59 to play in the opening half.
Although the Wildcats hung around, the Cardinals closed the stanza on a 7-1 flurry, taking a 33-25 lead into the locker room.
The Wildcats, who hit on their first two attempts from three-point range, went 25:09 without a triple until Chris Czerapowicz connected from deep with 8:33 to play, making it 52-42.
But Gorgui Dieng's three-point play at the other end made it a 13-point bulge and Davidson never got within less than five the rest of the way.
Game NotesLouisville, which fell to 13th-seeded Morehead State a year ago in the second round, won its first tournament game since 2009 when the Cardinals reached the Elite Eight...Louisville won the only previous encounter with Davidson, 90-47, back in 1959...The Cardinals were 1-of-5 from beyond the arc and shot 40.4 percent from the floor, while Davidson shot 35 percent from the field.
