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When it comes to playing three games in three days, there’s not a better college basketball team suited for the task than one coached by Rick Pitino.

The Louisville Cardinals, riddled with scheduling conflicts on their home court in Freedom Hall, knocked off East Tennessee State on Saturday, Morgan State on Sunday, and Appalachian State Monday.

But when a three-game streak sets the season off, Pitino said even the most conditioned teams face an obstacle in winning them all.

"We want time to teach,” Pitino said Saturday. “There's nothing I can do about it. You want time to teach with all the mistakes you make, but you've got to get ready for the next opponent. That's the disappointing thing about these types of games.”

For the second year in a row, Louisville had to work around a series of non-basketball events and find a slot to squeeze in some November games. The Cardinals sandwiched three contests between a livestock exposition, a rodeo, and a pair of concerts.

At least for Pitino’s sake, this marks the last time his team will launch a season with three games in a row. The Cardinals move from Freedom Hall into a new, waterfront arena in 2010.

Pitino said he didn’t expect much learning to happen in the Cardinals’ opening home stand—that progression would come in the four days between their game Monday and the next against UNLV on Saturday. But the growth was obvious.

Pitino cited poor shot selection on Saturday, when his team shot 6-of-30 from the three-point line. They responded by shooting 44 percent on Sunday.

With better shooting, defense was sacrificed. Morgan State piled up the points in its 90-81 loss to Louisville.

So on Sunday, the Cardinals put it all together in an 80-53 dismantling of Appalachian State. Turns out three games in three days can have its benefits.

“I thought we did a terrific job tonight for the third game in three nights. What we wanted to do was improve in all three games, and we did,” Pitino said. “I was really upset the first night. Because when you spend so much time trying to figure out from a statistical thing what could help or hurt, you're 1-for-11 in taking challenge shots.

“You give the guys credit because they immediately saw what they did wrong. And, on the next night they went to the line 40-something times by driving, so you've got to give them credit for understanding where they made their mistakes.”

Going back to last week’s season opener against Arkansas, this past weekend was more proof of how far ahead this team—thought to be less talented than last year’s Cardinals—really is.

That includes important minutes from the freshman class.

Rakeem Buckles contributed eight points on Saturday. Peyton Siva added nine on Sunday, and Buckles was back Monday night with a career-high 10 rebounds.

Louisville didn’t get that kind of production last season from a freshman—outside of the exception, starting forward Samardo Samuels—until Terrence Jennings broke out after the New Year.

“I think all the freshmen are going to be terrific freshmen,” Pitino said. “This freshman class is really, really good, and they'll develop each year and get even better.”

Last weekend’s home stand was just the surprising beginning of that learning process, spurned by Pitino's conditioning standards and an unfortunate schedule of events.

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