Louisville 79, Long Beach State 66

[recap] [box score]

So much of this game was decided by fouls.

In the first half, T.J. Robinson picked up a quick two. The 49ers are not deep, and when one of their four perimeter/wing players goes out, their first sub off the bench is freshman point guard Mike Caffey. Caffey has had an okay first few college games as a role player, but he was not ready for the speed and pressure of the Louisville defense. His entrance into the lineup also requires that Casper Ware -- the team's best scorer, ballhandler, and playmaker -- play off the ball more, because Caffey can't.

Caffey's struggles and the ball being out of Ware's hands allowed Louisville to build a double-digit first-half lead, even as their point guard, Peyton Siva, sat on the bench with two fouls. The Cardinals are a lot deeper than the 49ers and can handle foul trouble to one of their players, even with some of the injuries they've suffered.

In the second half, though, Louisville found itself with foul problems of its own.

Louisville 69, Butler 53

[recap] [box score]

This game told us a lot more about Butler than it told us about Louisville.

The Cardinals were without four key players: Peyton Siva, Rakeem Buckles, Wayne Blackshear, and Mike Marra. They're going to have to get used to playing without Blackshear and Marra: Blackshear is out at least a couple of months after undergoing pre-season surgery to repair a torn labrum, and Marra was lost for the season after tearing his ACL in the season's second game. Buckles is recovering from an ACL tear suffered in late February, so presumably he'll be back sooner rather than later.

Siva's injury is the least serious, a severe ankle sprain suffered in practice this week. But it's also the most important. Siva is the point guard, the team's emotional leader, its best perimeter defender and probably its most dynamic offensive player, too. (If you can't tell, I'm pretty high on Siva.)

So this win, a convincing one at Hinkle Fieldhouse against the two-time national runners-up, looks impressive. But this Butler team is far from the one that came an inch against Duke and a lid on the basket against UConn from winning back-to-back titles.