Louisville basketball closes season against #2 ‘Hoos

Things didn’t go well the last time the Louisville basketball squad took the floor. Even though the Cards scored just one-less point in the second half than the Irish did on Wednesday, a 42-31 halftime deficit proved to be too much as the Irish rolled 71-59.

Louisville Cardinals

It wasn’t all bad for the Cardinals, however, as

lead all scorers with 23 points on 8-of-12 shooting. But, that was about the extent of the good for the Cards, who shot 42.3% from the floor and 23.5% from downtown in the loss. But, there’s little time to dwell because not only is today the final task of the regular season, but it’s a great test to see how well prepared Louisville is to make a tournament run.

Coming into the Yum! Center tonight are the #2 team in the land in the Virginia Cavaliers, who have just one blemish on the season when they fell by six in Durham to the Blue Devils at the end of January.

Since then?

Win, win, win, win, win, win…well, you get the point. Nine in a row, to be exact, including a Feb. 11th victory against the Cards (when UofL was ranked #9 at the time) by a 52-47 score.

That game was similar to the Notre Dame game – the Cavs’ took a large lead into halftime (24-13) that proved to be too much to overcome, even with a furious second half from the Cards. Louisville got 16 points from Terry Rozier and 11 from Chris Jones, along with 12 from Harrell, but not much else. As a matter of fact, the bench didn’t score a single point, and only Mangok Mathiang logged more than five minutes off the bench. Needless to say, the role players will need to step up today and Rozier and Harrell need to do what they did last time.

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There are plenty of people that think Louisville is skating by based on their reputation and name, and a good showing today could be the first step in silencing those who doubt Rick Pitino’s squad. As it stands, the Cards hold the #4 seed in the ACC tournament and receive the double-bye. If my understanding of the bracket and standings are correct, I don’t think Louisville is safe in that double-bye. With UNC holding a similar 11-6 conference record, a Cards’ loss matched up with a Heel’s win over Duke tomorrow would send UofL to the #5 game, who would play the winner of one of the proverbial “play in games” of the #12/#13 game. But, we will cross that bridge when we get to it.

Here’s your game information for today!

Date: March 7th, 2015

Tip-off Time: 6:30 p.m. ET

TV Channel: ESPN

Radio: NewsRadio 840 WHAS (Flagship) (Full list of UofL Radio Network affiliates)

Live Stream: WatchESPN.com