First I must qualify this. Louisville played like a rusty bung. They shot like the '09 Cards and got just about as many bad breaks (errant rebounds, dropped balls in the paint, possession arrow that seems stuck in the wrong direction). If the Cards had made something north of 17% of their 3-point attempts we'd be laughing about mafia-like assassination pulled off by the refs.

This sort of thing occurred with great regularity last year and it was maddening. It was looking like maybe this season things would even out a bit, until last night. It's not like the foul situation was horribly imbalanced -- on paper. But in reality it was like a pressure point take down. Like a controlled demolition where expert placement of the explosive device gets maximum impact out of minimum uses.

Not one. Not two. But three moving screens called on made baskets. Two away from the ball. Two on three pointers by PK. One of those kept us from extending a lead in the 2nd half. One of those kept us from taking the lead in the last 3(ish) minutes of the game.

You can't beat that kind of gut-ripping call, better to just miss the shot. With calls like that being made is there any doubt that we were not supposed to win that game? Probably for the best that we dropped a shitty performance since the refs knew at the tip it was time for Providence to end its Big East losing streak.

If I were a Friars fan (shudder) I'd be happy with the win no matter how it came to pass. You don't achieve that short of futility without some things going against you. So I suppose they deserve the win, and they played OK. I hate that it had to happen against us, I hate that the refs had to be the ones to administer the beating (no offense to Marshon Brooks).

Obviously this puts more pressure on the WV game. Unfortunately the 'eers loss to Marshall yesterday means they are going to be as amped up as we are. Last year we got jobbed by the refs at Morgantown, hopefully Higgins and his buddies got it out of their system on Saturday. We don't need any 3rd party interference to turn this game into a brawl.