Our Cardinals will be looking to move to 7-0 and get their 32nd consecutive win over a non-conference opponent at the Yum Center when they host FIU on Friday night at 7:00pm. This series was started when Richard Pitino was the Panthers head coach. These teams have played three times with Louisville winning all three games. The Cardinals beat the Panthers last season 85-56 in Miami.

Coach Pitino FIU Press Conference

Leading FIU on the offensive side of the floor is senior G Dennis Mavin who is averaging 16.5 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.4 assists. Junior C Adrian Diaz is averaging 13.8 points and 7.5 rebounds a game. He is 39th in the nation in blocked shots with 2.5 a game. G Dominique Williams is averaging 7.8 points and 4 rebounds a game.

FIU has been strong on the defensive side of the ball through their first eight games, ranking 26th nationally in scoring defense (55.0 ppg), eighth in three-point field goal percentage defense (.215) and 90th nationally in
steals (9.0 per game). In their last game FIU limited Kennesaw State to 26.9 percent from the field, forced 15 turnovers and held a +10 margin in rebounding.

FIU 2014-15 OVERALL RANKINGS Offense | Defense
-POINTS PER GAME
62.1
279th
OVERALL
-REBOUNDS PER GAME
36.6
128th
OVERALL
-ASSISTS PER GAME
12.9
166th
OVERALL
-FIELD GOAL PCT
.425
200th
OVERALL
-POINTS ALLOWED
56.1
25th
OVERALL
-D REBOUNDS PER GAME
26.0
88th
OVERALL
-BLOCKS PER GAME
4.3
107th
OVERALL
-STEALS PER GAME
7.5
90th
OVERALL

2014-15 Kenpom Rankings
Overall- #243
Defense Adjustment Efficiency
-98.8 ranks 144th
Offense Adjustment Efficiency
-93.7 ranks 299th
-Per Kenpom game prediction he has the Cardinals winning the game 73-50 based on his indexes.

The Cardinals are a 30 point favorite tonight so don’t expect this one to be very exciting. It will be another one of those tune-up games against other competition and will be good for working on some things offensively while getting our bench some valuable playing time. Montrezl Harrell will be going for his 19th game in a row scoring in double figures and currently leads the ACC in that category. I would like to see Chris Jones have a better night and think that would give him a confidence boost.

Tonight is the last game before the end of classes on December 8th. This is typically the time of year coach Pitino gets these guys in the gym and really starts ironing out issues on both defense and offense getting them prepared for the conference run. Hopefully he can get Shaqquan back during this time as well. Things are really going to start picking up and the level of competition will also. But that won’t be the case tonight. Cards will cruise to 7-0…

The Beak Prediction:
Louisville 80 FIU 49