With his two big men from last year’s national championship basketball team now earning paychecks in the NBA, Rick Pitino’s Louisville Cardinals remain somewhat of a dark horse for the upcoming ‘March Madness’. But don’t count them out just yet.
Sure the Cardinals lost 5 games this season and ended up ranked number eleven. But take a look at the losses they incurred this season. Louisville lost twice to Memphis, once to Kentucky, once to Cincinnati and once to North Carolina. If there are any such thing as quality losses, these five must qualify, all five were single digit defeats.
But the Cardinals won nine of their last ten and seem to be peaking at just about the right time for the big dance, and they have been there before. Sophomore Montrezl Harrell has stepped up to replace Peyton Siva and Gorgui Dieng from last year’s squad and is blowing the competition away shooting 61.6% on his two pointers. He is averaging 13.8 points per game behind team leading Russ Smith who is contributing 18.
Senior guard Russ Smith has done much to increase his value in the next NBA Draft this year. He has shown himself to be an unselfish team player capable of delivering the big baskets when the game is on the line.
Louisville started off with a bang by posting an 11-1 record before Christmas. But then, during the middle of the season, the Cardinals sort of fell out of the national championship conversation all together. Well, they are back. Louisville walloped UCONN in the last game of the regular season by a final score of 81-48.
One of the things that keeps hoops action interesting to watch and wager on is observing the development of the various teams as the season goes along. There are some teams that we just know after watching one or two games that are destined for at least a ‘Sweet Sixteen’ berth. While there are others that, after one or two games, we can pretty much write off.
Louisville is the exception to the above pattern. This team has developed and evolved as the season progressed behind solid coaching and good athletes. Now the Cards will enter the ACC (American Athletic Conference) tournament as the number two seed, but only because they lost a coin toss with Cincinnati.
So once again, as the big dance approaches, the Louisville Cardinals are poised on the perimeter waiting to strike out once more for the NCAA Championship.
