All of the talk around the Louisville Cardinals of late has had nothing really to do with basketball at all. Unfortunately, live bettors are going to want to judge their degree of caring when they take on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish now that the news of their postseason ban has come and gone from the news.
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SCHEDULING
There's been plenty of time off for both of these teams to get ready for each other on Saturday, as both were on the court last on Monday. Louisville was beaten at Duke, while Notre Dame tripped up Clemson for its second win in three days against a team which could be on its way to the dance.
KEY MATCHUP
Bonzie Colson has stepped into the starting lineup of late and has really made a difference for Notre Dame. The forward has been a monster on the glass, picking up 23 boards in his last three duels, and he's only played an average of 28 minutes per game in the process.
Colson is averaging 18.8 points and 10.7 rebounds per 40 minutes on the court, and for a man who is just 6-foot-5, he sure is causing problems in the paint.
Louisville's zone defense though, could put a stop to that. If Colson runs into Chinanu Onuaku too many times in this one, there's a good chance he could get blocked five or six times.
The problem Colson has for live bettors of the Irish is that he isn't a man who can stretch the floor. That leaves just three real shooters on the court at any given time in V.J. Beachem, Demetrius Jackson and Steve Vasturia, and that puts a ton of pressure on those three to keep the scoring up. All three were in double figures in scoring against Clemson, but if that doesn't turn out to be the case on Saturday, live bettors could find this offense to struggle quite a bit.
KEY STATS & TRENDS
The Fighting Irish have been dropping 80+ points on teams with regularity of late. They did so to both Clemson and North Carolina in wins as well as against lesser foes like Boston College and Virginia Tech. When reaching the 80-point plateau, Notre Dame is 5-0 SU and 4-1 ATS since the middle of January. When it hasn't reached 80, it has gone 1-2 SU and ATS. Live bettors should definitely keep tabs of the scoring pace in this one.
Louisville, a team which is just 1-6 ATS on the road this season, struggled again on Monday at Duke, losing by seven in a game which really never felt like it was all that winnable. The Cardinals still haven't won a game on the road this season against an NCAA Tournament caliber team. What truly makes that notable is the fact that they haven't scored all that much on the road against the big boys either.
Rick Pitino's crew has played three of its four games on the road against certain tourney teams under the total, and it has been held to 73 points or fewer in all of those contests. Live bettors should be aware of that and be prepared for a game which gets a little sluggish at times, especially if Damion Lee and Trey Lewis are on the bench or aren't playing up to their potential.
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