Louisville vs. Indiana: Score and Reaction from 2016-17 Regular Season

The No. 6 Louisville Cardinals bolstered their resume Saturday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, as they defeated the No. 16 Indiana Hoosiers 77-62.

Louisville improved to 12-2 with the win and bounced back from a loss to Virginia, while Indiana fell to 10-4 and has now dropped two consecutive games as well as three of its past five.

The Cardinals were a far more efficient team than the Hoosiers on Saturday, shooting 52.9 percent from the field as opposed to Indiana's 32.2 percent. Louisville was also bolstered by the play of guard Donovan Mitchell, who registered a career- and game-high 25 points, including four three-pointers.

Louisville and Indiana played tightly contested basketball for much of the first half, as they remained within one basket of each other for the first 13 minutes.

The Hoosiers were struggling from the field, but strong defensive plays, such as the one seen in this video courtesy of CBS Sports CBB, kept them in it:

Louisville began to bust the game open in the closing minutes of the opening half, however, as its aggressive defense forced Indiana into both bad shots and turnovers.

As Jeff Greer of the Courier-Journal pointed out, the Hoosiers appeared to struggle with the amount of defensive movement the Cardinals and head coach Rick Pitino threw at them:

Deng Adel and Jaylen Johnson took over from an offensive perspective for Louisville, combining to score the team's final 12 points of the half and contributing to a 39-27 lead at the break.

As seen in the following graphic, Indiana was the victim of a sloppy first half and was unable to find any type of offensive rhythm:

Few teams are as talented as Tom Crean's Hoosiers, but their performances have run the gamut from incredible to pitiful so far this season.

Their first-half showing against Louisville on Saturday was poor, and Doug Gottlieb of CBS Sports pointed out that it is nearly impossible to predict how they'll play in any given game or half:

"

Indiana has wins over #kubball #UNC, losses to IPFW & #Nebrasketball --getting run by #Louisville right now. Good luck figuring them out

— Doug Gottlieb (@GottliebShow) December 31, 2016"

The Cardinals continued to build on their lead early in the second half, but the good version of the Hoosiers showed up out of nowhere to make a game of it.

Indiana's doggedness on the glass, especially on the offensive end, allowed it to get back in the game, as it piled up second-chance points.

The Hoosiers out-rebounded the Cardinals significantly Saturday by a 39-28 margin, and it kept them in contention despite their horrible shooting effort.

After trailing by double digits for much of the second half, Indiana managed to close the gap to just six at 50-44 with 12:20 remaining by virtue of an impressive scoring run:

"

It was 46-31, Louisville, with 16:33 to go. Since: 13-4, Indiana. Louisville: 2-3 but 3 TOs. https://t.co/O2I7j4aIxL

— Jeff Greer (@jeffgreer_cj) December 31, 2016"

With the momentum shifting in Indiana's favor and the crowd behind it, Mitchell took over for the Cardinals. He sandwiched a made layup in between a pair of trifectas to push Louisville's advantage back up to 12.

Louisville's success from three-point land was a huge difference-maker in the game, as it was a departure from what it's done in that area all season long, per Jeff Rabjohns of Peegs.com:

With Louisville up by 11 with just over six minutes remaining, Mitchell sunk another shot from deep to essentially put the game out of reach.

Mitchell came off the bench Saturday, and he corrected his recent issues in a big way, according to Rick Bozich of WDRB:

Although there was too much ground for the Hoosiers to make up in the closing minutes, they continued to push in an effort to mount another comeback.

It fell short in the end, but OG Anunoby gave the Indiana faithful something to cheer for with a highlight-reel dunk:

That emphatic slam only cut Louisville's lead to 12, however, and the Cardinals managed to run out the clock on their rivals.

The Cardinals are now set to enter the meat of ACC play with a clash against No. 24 Notre Dame on Jan. 4 followed by a Jan. 7 contest against Georgia Tech, which shocked North Carolina on Saturday.

Louisville is a battle-tested team with some impressive wins on its resume already, and Saturday's victory over Indiana in what was a virtual road game suggests it is a legitimate national title contender.

The Hoosiers enter Big Ten play on a sour note, but they don't have much time to feel sorry for themselves, as they will host No. 14 Wisconsin on Jan. 3.

Indiana has proved that it can hang with college basketball's elite teams, but it is in the midst of a tough stretch.

Poor shooting and sloppy all-around play plagued the Hoosiers on Saturday—problems that Crean must solve in order to remain in the mix for a title in the deep and talented Big Ten.

Postgame Reaction

Following Saturday's dominant win, Pitino was thrilled with his team's performance and made it clear that he considered their showing to be an ideal scenario for future games moving forward, according to Chris Widlic of CBS4 Indy:

Pitino also addressed the play of two of the Cardinals top contributors Saturday in the form of Mitchell and Adel.

The legendary coach stressed the importance of Mitchell trusting his skills rather than worrying about mistakes:

He also discussed how Adel's uptick in aggressiveness from a fate similar to what Mitchell suffered prior to the Indiana game, per Andy Sweeney of ESPN Louisville:

Crean's tone was understandably less jovial, and much of that had to do with his team's poor ball security.

According to Zach Osterman of the Indianapolis Star, Crean believed Indiana beat itself to some degree by turning the ball over:

At the same time, Crean conveyed that the Hoosier's struggles from the field were an aberration rather than something that will occur regularly moving forward:

Crean admitted that Indiana won't be on point offensively in every game, but he discussed the need to come through in other areas when that happens, per Jeremy Price of the Bloomington Herald-Times:

Indiana is a team with elite talent that isn't living up to its potential currently, and it is up to Crean to get the Hoosiers back to playing the type of basketball that allowed them to knock off both Kansas and North Carolina earlier in the season.

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.