Marquette walked into the KFC Yum Center alone atop the Big East standings, but it was Louisville which looked like the class of the conference for an afternoon.

Russ Smith scored a game-high 18 points while Peyton Siva chipped in 14 to go with seven assists as the Cards overcame an early 9-1 deficit to trounce their longtime league rivals.

The good from this one is fairly obvious: Peyton appeared to snap out of his funk (although we could have gone without the six turnovers), Russ did mostly good Russ things, Trez is an absolute freak, SVT's status as a fan favorite is justified, and, perhaps most importantly, U of L's halfcourt offense looked as good as it has all season.

This was sort of the complete opposite of the Syracuse game; the win was important, but the way it came about was even more important and more encouraging.

Here's your final Cardinal box score:

Nice little Sunday.