Louisville Slugged

Another Big Monday showdown, and this time, nearly another 30-point blowout.

In the matchup between the last two unbeaten teams in Big East play, No. 1 UConn left little doubt as to who the team to beat in the conference is, beating No. 6 Louisville 93-65 Monday night at Gampel Pavilion in front of a national audience on ESPN2.

"They come out with the excitement, and to know that we could step up to that challenge and perform the way we did, it gives us a lot of confidence," said UConn forward Maya Moore.

With the win, the Huskies (20-0, 6-0) took sole possession of first place in the Big East.

The game featured two former Big East Conference Players of the Year in Louisville forward and 2007 winner Angel McCoughtry and the 2008 winner Moore.

Moore led all scorers with 27 points to go along with 11 rebounds, four assists and three steals. McCoughtry did her best to keep the Cardinals (19-2, 6-1) in the game with 24 points, 13 rebounds and four steals.

In the end, however, it was the difference between UConn's and Louisville's supporting casts that proved to be the decisive factor in the lopsided outcome

The Huskies had five players score in double figures on the night.

Freshman Tiffany Hayes, who came off the bench to score a career-high 23 points, which included six 3-pointers. Center Tina Charles added 18 points and 10 rebounds for her sixth double-double of the season. Guards Kalana Greene and Renee Montgomery scored 12 and 11 points respectively.

"If we are going to be a great team, we need people other than Maya and Renee," said coach Geno Auriemma. "If it's just Maya and Renee, we don't have a great team."

Moore said that the difference between when the supporting cast steps up and doesn't is like "night and day."

"I think it's the difference between a 15-point win and a 30-point win or a buzzer beater and a 10-point win," Moore said. "And I think they realize that and take it as a responsibility as we saw tonight."

Aside from McCoughtry and forward Candyce Bingham, who scored 17 for the Cardinals, no Louisville player scored more than six points in the game.

"I thought we got a little frustrated there at times, and if we don't have some other kids step up and score for us, then it's going to be hard for us," said Louisville coach Jeff Walz. "Coming into this game we'd been having three or four that were scoring."

Louisville played the Huskies close over the game's first 15-plus minutes, including a 12-1 run that gave the Cardinals a 32-31 lead with 4:52 remaining in the half. From there, however, UConn capitalized off numerous Louisville turnovers to score the final 14 points and the Huskies 45-32 halftime lead.

"[UConn is] a great team who converts off turnovers and we had a couple of careless turnovers, unforced turnovers," McCoughtry said. "And, of course, [UConn] being number one, they are going to convert."

The run drained the Cardinals' energy, according to Louisville freshman guard Deseree Byrd.

"The excitement was there, but they went on a 14-0 run and we just shut down," Byrd said.

There didn't appear to be any letup in the Huskies coming out of halftime, either. UConn opened up with a 16-4 run over the first 4:28 of the second half. The Huskies led by as many as 32 points in the half and didn't allow the Cardinals to get the game back to within fewer than 20 points after that initial 16-4 run.

"I think it just shows we're that kind of team that no matter what the situation is, we always want to increase [the lead]," Moore said. "We always want to go and just push the score up as high as we can. The ball was going in and we just built on that momentum."