Stats were gathered using teamrankings.com, foxsports.com, evanmiya.com. Stats with parenthesis is the teams national rank in this statistic. Evan Miya OBPR is a offensive efficiency statistic that predicts future outcomes. Evan Miya DBPR is a defensive efficiency statistic that predicts future outcomes. Evan Miya combines OBPR and DBPR together.

                Louisville tries to bounce back after a rough Wednesday evening against NC State. Louisville is in a dire need for wins to bolster a tournament resume and maybe a way to keep Mack’s job. I’ll tell you my thoughts on the game below.               

                Louisville fans are familiar with what Pittsburgh looks like from a couple of weeks ago. Louisville will need to continue to improve offensively to find a win tonight. Louisville found this stride against Pittsburgh last game. Mack will continue with the same starting five as Wednesday night, Williams, Cross, Williamson, Ellis, and West, which is a bit surprise since most of these guys had limited minutes . Out of these five, only West had played over twenty minutes. Mack said in his Wednesday night presser that he didn’t know who he could play, so it may be a random again who gets the majority of the minutes. Something I need to see is Louisville adjust into a zone defense if they continually get beat off the dribble like they did against NC State. Someone will have to step up against Hugley in the post. Sorry, but Malik was embarrassed last matchup against him and will lose minutes if he cannot guard him again tonight. Pittsburgh is a team that emphasizes to get the ball into the paint and try to score down low. It will be good to see if Louisville to play into the pac line defense, but I’m not confident in this with guys like Faulkner and Ellis needing to play more minutes. There may be a chip on everyone’s shoulder since Malik created this rivalry with Pittsburgh, but I’m not confident that Malik can walk out his talk. I tend to think Sydney will need to play more minutes not only offensively but defensively.

                I’m not confident with this Louisville team tonight. Louisville is struggling to find their identity and it has had to shift from what was a strong defense due to their inability to score with the past starting five. I hope this team comes out with a chip on their shoulder, but I don’t see it. I predict the score to be 70-65 Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh has trended in the right direction lately while Louisville has not. I won’t be able to watch today so I won’t have a write up for a recap. Let’s hope I’m wrong like I was the last time I predicted a loss.

-degenerateCARD

Stats via teamrankings.com, evanmiya.com, and foxsports.com