NCAA Preview: Louisville Cardinals
Posted by rtmsf on March 16th, 2009Louisville (#1 seed, Midwest, Dayton pod)
vs. Morehead State (#16)
Friday, March 20th, 7:10pm
Vegas Line: Louisville -21
Thanks to Vegas Watch for providing these graphs that measure the moving average of a team’s spread (moving avg.) over time vs. the spread for each individual game (indiv). If a team’s moving average is higher than zero, then Vegas currently has a higher opinion of them than Pomeroy, and vice versa.
General Profile
Location: Louisville, Kentucky
Conference: Big East, won the conference tournament
Coach: Rick Pitino, 197-72 (so far) at Louisville
08-09 Record: 28-5, 19-2 Big East
Last 12 Games: 11-1
Best Win: 69-63 v. Pittsburgh, January 17th
Worst Loss: 57-90 v. Notre Dame, February 12th
Off. Efficiency Rating: 111.1/ 46th overall
Def. Efficiency Rating: 84.0/ 2nd overall
Nuts n Bolts
Star Player(s): Terrence Williams- 12.6 points/game, 8.5 rebounds/game, 5.0 assists/game, 2.3 steals/game
Unsung Hero: Jerry Smith- 7.3 points/game, 1.2 steals/game, 38.7 3Pt%
Potential NBA Draft Pick(s): Earl Clark/ projected 8th overall… Terrence Williams/ projected 42nd overall
Injuries: None
Depth: 31.5%/155th
Achilles Heel: Discipline is the one thing that Louisville has lacked in their losses. Earl Clark is an other-world talent, but he shoots just 30.1% from downtown, so why does he continue to bomb? The Cardinals don’t need Edgar Sosa to score for them to be successful, but he is shooting even worse than Clark and has taken more threes. It is difficult to find a team with more talent, and experience, but sometimes the Cardinals don’t use all that talent efficiently.
Will Make a Deep Run if… If Edgar Sosa plays under control and distributes instead of trying to score, and Pitino can keep Samardo Samuels and Terrance Jennings out of foul trouble, the Cardinals will be in most people’s Final Four brackets, and will probably be a championship contender. On the biggest stage in the sport it seems the Cardinals will not be prone to their occasional letdown, and if they take good shots they will be one of the best teams in.
Will Make an Early Exit if… If they get off to a slow start against a team and have to play from behind, they will struggle. From behind the Cardinals will start to force up bad shots, they will try to make too many plays and end up turning the ball over. There is no mid-major team that can play with Louisville when they are on their game; they just need to stay focused.
NCAA History
Last Year Invited: 2008, lost in the Elite Eight to North Carolina
Streak: Two consecutive years
Best NCAA Finish: They were National Champions in 1980 and 1986.
Historical Performance vs. Seed (1985-present): +0.46 wins per appearance
Other
Six Degrees to Detroit: (provide some/any connection to the Motor City)
Distance to First Round Site: 152.88 miles away from Dayton, Ohio
School’s Claim to Fame:
School Wishes It Could Forget: Among the list of famous alumni of the University on Wikipedia are notable scholars, architects, musicians…oh, and Larry Birkhead, Anna Nicole Smith’s baby’s daddy. Did I miss something? Does he really get to be listed as a famous alumnus because he needed a paternity test to prove he was a lover of Anna Nicole Smith? Maybe I am wrong and the University of Louisville embraces him, but my guess is he is not at the top of their list for Commencement Speakers.
Prediction: I am just going to come out and say it. The Louisville Cardinals are the best team in the tournament and will win the NCAA Title. The way they dismantled the rest of the Big East, it looked like no one could hang with them. The Cardinals play smothering defense and are scoring points of the turnovers they create. If they continue to play within themselves, there is no one that can beat them.
Major RTC stories: None
Preview written by… Mike Lemaire
