LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – There’s no breakdown to be done. Jordan Nwora scored a career-high 37 points to lead No. 6 Louisville to its seventh straight win, an 86-69 victory at Boston College Wednesday night.
He was the difference.
Nwora had 21 points in the first 14 minutes and kept pouring it on. After struggling a bit offensively for four games, he was in rhythm on Wednesday, hitting 7 of 14 three-point attempts, and Boston College — which played a good offensive game itself — couldn’t keep up. His final total was the most scored by an ACC player this season.
"Jordan is a guy that doesn’t ever lose his confidence," Louisville coach Chris Mack told Bob Valvano on his Learfield Sports postgame radio interview. "And his last game, he shot like 5-6 shots. We’ve got to figure out ways to find him. Our guys have to push the ball a little bit harder, not just for Jordan but for our team’s sake, to get open looks. It’s harder to defend in transition. But you can’t do that when you’re taking the ball out of the net. It’s all conducive on what we do defensively, and we were much better in the second half. "
It wasn’t a pretty start for Louisville. Turnovers kept Boston College close, especially in the first half. Defensively, the Cardinals struggled to contain dribble penetration, and Mack actually turned to a zone defense — with some success — in the second half.
"I give BC a lot of credit," Mack told Valvano. "I thought they came out and ran their offense a thousand miles an hour. It looked a lot different on film, to be quite honest. We knew we would get their best, and they’re starting to come into their own, now that they’re healthy. They . . . gave us all we could handle tonight. The difference in the game was us going zone and Jordan’s shooting ability.
Once the Cardinals stopped turning it over — they had only three in the second half — it allowed their offense to operate, and they carved the Eagles up in the game’s final quarter, while frustrating them with a 2-3 zone, which they used extensively for the first time this season.
"I thought we did a great job (in the zone)," Mack told Valvano. "I thought outside of maybe giving up a few offensive rebounds and fouling unnecessarily, I thought our guys covered the areas that we had talked about. We got out on shooters, and it was really the difference and the separator in the second half."
And after a stretch of games in which it looked as if they couldn’t figure things out offensively, the Cardinals appear to have more answers. Nwora isn’t going to go for 30-plus every night, but the threat posed by David Johnson, as well as his passing from the point guard spot, can break some offensive logjams and eliminate the ruts that plagued them at times earlier in the season.
"I really feel like our guys are starting to feel a little offensively confident," Mack said. "Not every guy individually, maybe, but as a team, and how we want to play collectively. So it’s fun to watch. Now if we can add that defensive component that we’ve had through just about every game this year, I think we’ll be one of the best teams in the country.
Johnson wasn’t at his best Wednesday, turning the ball over four times, but he also had six points, eight rebounds and six assists.
Louisville got 14 points from Darius Perry, who got the Cards going early with a couple of step-back three-pointers in the opening minutes, in his second straight solid game. Dwayne Sutton added 10 points, while Malik Williams had 13 rebounds off the bench.
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