After Louisville upset West Virginia on Nov. 5, the Cardinals quickly became the talk of the Big East for a week. It was Louisville’s third straight win, a surprising streak that pushed the team into conference championship discussions.

A week after the big win, though, Charlie Strong’s squad fell flat in a loss to Pittsburgh after getting caught up in the increased attention. The disappointing performance served as a reminder that Strong’s program has a long way to go to establish itself as a winner.

‘When winning becomes a habit, you won’t listen to the outside influences because that’s what is expected of you,’ Strong said during the Big East coaches’ teleconference Monday. ‘And that’s what we have to get in this program, where you’re expected to go win, where it’s not a big deal for you to go beat someone.

‘Right now around here, it’s like a big deal when you go win a game like it’s never happened before.’

For Strong, creating that winning mentality begins with the players’ preparation at practice each week. It’s a challenge shared by many coaches in a mediocre Big East conference that has zero teams ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 poll. Seven of the eight teams in the conference currently sit at .500 or better, but no team has separated itself as the class of the Big East.

Louisville’s three-game conference winning streak ties Cincinnati for the longest of the season. The 2011 conference slate has seen teams follow impressive victories with deflating losses the very next week.

In the Big East opener, Pittsburgh thrashed South Florida. The next week, the Panthers were embarrassed by Rutgers. And when the Scarlet Knights returned to conference play two weeks later, they dropped a close game to a struggling Louisville team. Syracuse, West Virginia and Connecticut have all experienced similar highs and lows this season.

Like Strong, USF head coach Skip Holtz is trying to set the foundation for a winning program in his second year at the helm. Despite registering a big win over Notre Dame and starting 4-0 this year, the Bulls lost their first four conference games this season.

Holtz said the team doesn’t have the depth it needs to achieve his goal of competing in the conference yet, but the players are moving toward establishing a winning mentality.

‘I think the attitude of the players and the foundation that’s being laid and the work habits certainly are going to go a long way in helping us build this for the future,’ Holtz said during the teleconference.

To keep his team focused during its brutal four-game losing streak, Holtz preached to his players to stay the course. He said there is no quick fix to change its fortune. It takes hard work at practice to eliminate costly mistakes on the field in the games.

The head coach knows once his players buy into that message every week, the program will move toward competing for the Big East title.

‘The biggest thing for us through this whole thing has been the message of consistency of where we’re going and how we’re building it and not to vary off of that,’ Holtz said during the teleconference. ‘Because I think that’s the only way you’re really going to get the players to really buy into what it takes to build that program that we all want to have here at South Florida.’

Paul Pasqualoni is tasked with rebuilding a Connecticut program in his first season. After the Huskies won the Big East title last season, Pasqualoni took over an inexperienced team expected to finish at the bottom of the conference.

That prediction looked accurate when UConn suffered a 43-16 loss to West Virginia in its Big East opener, falling to 2-4 overall in the process. But Connecticut regrouped and remains a factor in the Big East race with a 2-2 conference record.

Still, Pasqualoni isn’t concerned with talk of going after the conference championship with three games left to play. He is intent on preparing his players to play Louisville this Saturday.

‘We’ve got our work cut out for us,’ Pasqualoni said during the teleconference. ‘We need to focus on that, and I’m a firm believer in anything else is a distraction, and the more distracted you are the worse you play.’

That fact is fresh in Strong’s mind after Louisville tripped up last week. The Louisville head coach is using this week’s practice to remind players they need to be locked in every week to develop a winning mentality.

All he needs to do is point to the Cardinals’ embarrassing loss to Marshall following its win over in-state rival Kentucky. The loss to the Thundering Herd and the one to Pittsburgh last week show why the team must come to practice ready to go every day.

‘If the work isn’t done on the practice field, it would never reach game day because you can’t turn it on and turn it off,’ Strong said. ‘That is done from Sunday till Friday, not on Saturday.’

Sanu breaks Big East record for receptions in a season

Rutgers wide receiver Mohamed Sanu caught 13 passes on Saturday against Army to push his season total to 94, breaking former Pittsburgh wideout Larry Fitzgerald’s Big East record of 92 catches set in 2003. Sanu also broke the Rutgers record of 87 catches held by Kenny Britt. Sanu had 129 yards on his receptions to help the Scarlet Knights defeat Army 27-12 in Yankee Stadium.

He currently has 973 yards receiving with seven touchdowns on the season. Sanu is second in the nation in receptions, trailing Western Michigan’s Jordan White, who has 99. Justin Blackmon of Oklahoma State and Robert Woods of Southern California are right behind the Rutgers star with 93 and 92 catches, respectively.

rjgery@syr.edu

Published on November 15, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Ryne: rjgery@syr.edu