Rick Pitino and the Louisville Cardinals are a #1 seed and the consensus tournament favorite. Beating lowly North Carolina A&T which barely got past sub .500 Liberty should be easy.

Fortunately for the Cardinals and those of us that picked them to win the title, it was breeze. Louisville dominated 79-48.

Junior guard Russ Smith, who averages 18.1 ppg, turned in a great performance, dropping 23 points in the tournament opener for the Cardinals.

While the victory was expected, the manner of the victory is on par with what we would expect from Louisville at this stage in the tournament and it certainly did not deter from their frontrunner status.

Louisville will face their first test of the tournament when they face the winner of Colorado State-Missouri on Saturday. However, it is unlikely that either team will provide much competition. The winner of Oregon-Saint Louis should prove to be more of a challenge.