We are coming down the home stretch of another Louisville Basketball season, and five of the Cardinals’ eight remaining regular season games are at home in the KFC Yum Center. The first of those games will be on Wednesday night when the Pitt Panthers come to town. Louisville has a 9-5 advantage in its series with Pittsburgh, winning the last five match-ups. The Cardinals won 80-68 at Pitt earlier this season. The Cardinals are currently 5th in the ACC while Pitt is currently 8th in the ACC standings.

Pitt enters the game in Louisville having won its last three games and that’s their second longest winning streak of the season. The Cardinals are the fourth ranked opponent Pitt will face this season and third in the top-10. On the season, Pitt is averaging 69 points on 44.6% shooting from the field, and 33.2% from the three point line. Leading the way for Pitt this season is Michael Young (13.2 ppg, 8.0 rpg, 1.1 apg), Jamel Artis (12.8 ppg, 5.7 rpg, 2.1 apg), James Robinson (10.2 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 5.1 apg), Cameron Wright (9.1 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 2.6 apg) and Chris Jones (8.9 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 2.0 apg). They have five players averaging at least seven points.

Defensively, Pittsburgh is allowing 64.9 points on 44.3% shooting from the field, 34.4% shooting from deep and has given up 70 or more points in five of its last six games. Pitt does a great job of taking care of the basketball and sharing the ball. Pitt has a 1.66 assist: turnover ratio, which ranks No. 3 nationally and has turned the ball over only 10.0 times per game, which ranks No. 10 nationally. James Robinson and Josh Newkirk alone have combined for a 2.58 assist: turnover ratio (206 assists/80 turnovers). Pitt is 62nd in the ratings percentage index (RPI) and 79th in the Sagarin Ratings through Feb. 8.

Pitt 2014-15 OVERALL Rankings Offense | Defense

Pitt 2014-15 Kenpom Rankings
Overall- #96
Defense Adjustment Efficiency
-103.4 ranks 205th
Offense Adjustment Efficiency
-110.4 ranks 37th
-Per Kenpom’s game prediction he has Louisville winning the game 71-58 based on his indexes.

Our Cardinals hope to keep things rolling with wins in five of their last seven games. The Cardinals are averaging 72 points on 43.6% shooting from the field and 30.4% from the three point line. The Cards have shot a combined 47.5% from the field in its last five games and have shot above 47% from the field on 11 occasions this season, including seven times in the last 11 games. They followed their 19% first half shooting performance at Virginia by shooting 52% in the second half. Terry Rozier is averaging 18.3 points and 2.5 assists while Montrezl Harrell is averaging 15.2 points and nine rebounds. Chris Jones is dishing 3.8 assists and Wayne Blackshear is shooting 38 percent from the field. The Louisville Cardinals have four double-digit scorers and the bench has been scoreless in four games this season, including the last two. Defensively, Louisville is allowing 58.5 points, 37.3% shooting from the field, and 29% shooting from deep. They have given up 63 or less points in four of their last seven games.

The Cardinals have been shooting a lot better on the road than at the Yum Center this season, and hopefully that will change on Wednesday night. The Cardinals had problems turning over Virginia to get some of those easy baskets and things won’t get any easier with Pitt as they are a team that takes very good care of the ball and are very methodical in their offensive sets. I really hope we start to see some better production specifically from Snider, Aaron, Gill, and in that 5 spot from Nanu, Mango and Anas. If we could just get a total of 10 points and 5 boards from these six players that would be huge for this team heading into March.

Should be a good battle as Pitt has continued to improve and they do a lot of things right and have some solid inside play. This one will be a grinder…

The Beak Prediction:
Louisville 74 Pitt 62