No. 9 Louisville takes care of Pittsburgh

There were Chinanu Onuaku post-ups and Quentin Snider pull-ups and Anton Gill fast-break dunks and ...

Wait, what?

Yes, you read that right. The eighth-ranked University of Louisville basketball team held off a feisty challenge from visiting Pittsburgh and won 69-56 on Wednesday night, and the role players who'd frustrated Louisville so much on offense woke up at the perfect time.

In Louisville's previous two games -- a Feb. 3 win at Miami and Saturday's loss at Virginia -- only four players scored a point. Nothing from the starting center. Nothing from the bench. Just scoring from Chris Jones, Terry Rozier, Wayne Blackshear and Montrezl Harrell.

And while Harrell had the game of the night -- 28 points, 12 rebounds and five blocks -- and his 21st career double-double, the contributions from Louisville's not-so-common scorers stood out.

"I'm really, really happy," Louisville coach Rick Pitino said. "We got a big lift tonight from guys that don't normally play."

Snider, a freshman point guard, had his best game of the season, looking confident with the ball in his hands and the most tuned-in he's been on defense since arriving on campus. He even supplanted Jones during a key stretch of the second half, finishing with four points.

"Playing against Chris and Terry in practice, learning from them is what's making me better," Snider said. "That's the main thing about (Pitino): He wants me to be more aggressive. That's what I tried to do tonight."

Onuaku was impressive, too, making his first field goal since Louisville's Jan. 28 win at BC. The freshman big man hadn't scored in the past two games.

And leave it to Gill, the soft-spoken sophomore, to thunder in a momentum-changing dunk and let out a primal scream into the crowd.

If that didn't surprise anyone, then surely Anas Mahmoud's from-the-weakside swat in the second half to persist Louisville's 22-2 run to put Pitt away did.

But all of that is what Louisville (20-4, 8-3 in the ACC) needed. Just a little extra juice. And the youngsters provided it on Wednesday. For some, it's about time. For Louisville, it was the perfect time.