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Big East opponents are finding out Louisville is playing its best ball of the season.

Key Shot

By Adam Rittenberg
ESPN.com

Louisville entered Thursday night as one of the inseparables, a strong team sprinting alongside other strong teams in a crowded Big East upper crust.

True, the Cardinals entered with seven straight wins, but in this league, that's nothing special. Marquette is riding a five-game surge, Connecticut recently ended a 10-game run, and Georgetown and Notre Dame combined for five streaks of five games or longer.

Rick Pitino's players needed another revealing performance to make themselves stand out among an attractive bunch. The Cardinals delivered with a 90-85 victory against No. 17 Notre Dame in a game they dominated for 35 minutes before the inevitable Irish salvo from 3-point range.

There's something different about this streak, which now sits at eight. In addition to defending Freedom Hall against Georgetown and now Notre Dame, No. 18 Louisville has road wins against Marquette and Pitt. Notre Dame continues to struggle against quality teams away from the Joyce Center and Marquette's road résumé, while improved, still lacks a bit.

Louisville also is doing it with defense, holding Georgetown, Marquette and Syracuse to 57 points or fewer. And don't be fooled by the 85 points allowed Thursday. The Cardinals' pressure forced 16 turnovers and held Notre Dame to 1-of-9 shooting from behind the arc in the first half. Georgetown leads the league in scoring defense, but Louisville's lockdown defense will pay off in March.

Though Notre Dame's Luke Harangody furthered his case to be the league's top player (career-high 40 points), Cardinals forward David Padgett showed why he might be the most valuable. Padgett's fluid passing and timely hooks sparked Louisville to a 22-8 lead, and the medical marvel finished with a season-high 26 points.

Harangody was once again brilliant, swishing three 3-pointers after entering the game 0-for-3 from long range. But the big man got no help inside, and Louisville's front-court depth showed with Earl Clark (14 points, 9 rebounds) and Terrence Williams (14 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists).

After this night, Louisville is closing in on a 2 or 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament -- and giving the rest of the Big East separation anxiety.

Adam Rittenberg covers college football and college basketball for ESPN.com. He can be reached at espnritt@gmail.com.

Player of the Year?

By Adam Rittenberg
ESPN.com

Before the season, the notion that Harangody would become the Big East's most dominant big man truly defied logic. He had turned in an efficient freshman year, averaging 11.2 points and 6.2 rebounds in only 20.6 minutes per game, but nothing suggested a supersized jump in production.

Besides, look at the guy. Listed at 6-foot-8 and 251 pounds, Harangody seems more suited for the offensive line than the front line. Those interstate-wide shoulders and that Porterhouse-thick neck could help Notre Dame's woeful rushing attack, but in a sport in which length and agility mean everything, Harangody appears out of place.

This season, however, there's no doubt about where he belongs.

Through Monday's games, Harangody is leading the Big East in scoring (20.2 points per game) and ranks second in rebounds (10.5), and he has propelled No. 17 Notre Dame to a 21-5 mark. He leads the Big East in double-doubles (16) -- recording six straight before a Feb. 17 win at Rutgers -- and has scored in double figures in 24 consecutive games.

Harangody's deceptive athleticism and brute strength have triggered the upsurge, but anyone in the weight room last summer knows the real reason behind it.

"He's wired, man," Irish coach Mike Brey said. "There's a body language of confidence, and he backs it up. It's a perfect storm of athletic ability, unbelievable hands, timing, technique, feel for the game -- and then psyche."

To read all of Rittenberg's feature on Harangody, click here.

Key Notes

By Jason McCallum
ESPN Research

• Wisconsin beat Michigan State 57-42 on Thursday night in a battle of top Big Ten teams. Wisconsin's control of the ball was the determining factor in this one as the Badgers set a school record for fewest turnovers with one. The last team to turn the ball over only once was Louisville on Feb. 7, 2007, in a home loss to Georgetown. Prior to that, the last team with one or fewer turnovers was Southern University on March 6, 2001, in a win over Grambling. The Jaguars had zero turnovers in an 85-68 win.

• Tom Izzo has been at Michigan State for 13 seasons now. During his first six seasons, he was 12-3 vs. Wisconsin. But since Bo Ryan came on the scene in Madison, it has been a different story. With the win Thursday, Ryan is now 10-3 vs. Izzo's Spartans.

• Louisville beat Notre Dame 90-85 at Freedom Hall -- but not without avoiding Luke Harangody's career night. Harangody had a career-high 40 points and 12 rebounds for the Irish, becoming the fourth player this season to record at least 40 points and 10 rebounds in a game. The last Big East player to score 40 points in a game was Villanova's Scottie Reynolds, who scored 40 in a win over Connecticut on Feb. 28, 2007.

• Harangody also went 3-for-4 from 3-point range during a frantic rally to make this game close at the end. Entering the game, Harangody had played 58 career games and was 0-for-4 from long distance during those games.

• The story of the night belonged to Quinnipiac's DeMario Anderson. The senior guard scored a game-high 28 points in the Bobcat's 76-73 overtime win at Central Connecticut State on the Blue Devils' senior night. His final bucket was a 40-footer at the buzzer for the win. The kicker is that Anderson transferred from Central Connecticut State to Quinnipiac after his sophomore season. So, in his senior season, on senior night at his former school, he hit a 40-foot buzzer-beater to win the game.

• Nevada's Brandon Fields scored a career-high 29 points in the Wolf Pack's 98-85 win over New Mexico State. In 61 career games, Fields has scored at least 20 points four times -- and two of those have come this season against the Aggies. In those two games, he has combined for 50 points on 16-for-23 shooting from the field and 15-for-17 shooting from the free-throw line.

• Washington State won 70-49 at California for its 10th road win of the season. The Cougars have not won 10 road games in a season since the 1946-47 season. There were only 48 states in the Union when that happened.