Wednesday night college basketball and we will see the Notre Dame Fighting Irish travel to the KFC Yum! Center to take on the Louisville Cardinals. The game has a start time of 7:00 pm (Eastern) and will be televised on ESPN 2. Current Vegas betting odds have the Cardinals listed as 4 point favorites, while the total is set at 136.
Analysis: The Notre Dame Fighting Irish come in off a bad 65-60 home loss to Syracuse, which snapped a 3 game win streak for the team. The Irish are now 24-5 overall for the year, including 6-2 in true road games, plus they are in third place in the ACC with a 12-4 mark. Notre Dame has gone 14-34-3 ATS in their last 51 games following a S.U. loss and 1-8 ATS in their last 9 Wednesday games. The Irish have been a very good offensive squad this year, ranking 10th in scoring (79.1 ppg), 2nd in shooting (50.8%), 21st in 3 point shooting (39.4%) and 62nd in FT shooting (72.4%). The defense for this team has been rather average, ranking 144th in points allowed (65.4 ppg), 154th in defensive FG% (42.5%) and 204th in 3 point defense (34.5%).
The Louisville Cardinals come in having won 3 games in a row, including a 22 point road win at Florida State on Saturday. The Cardinals are now 22-6 overall and 11-5 in the ACC, while going 14-3 at home so far. The Cardinals have gone 5-2 ATS in their last 7 games vs. a team with a winning % above .600, but just 2-8-1 ATS in their last 11 home games. Louisville has been a decent offensive team this year, as they come in ranked 106th in scoring (70.2 ppg), 199th in shooting (43.1%), 305th in 3 point shooting (30.9%) and 278th in FT shooting (66.1%). Defensively the Cardinals have been excellent, ranking 19th in points allowed (58.9 ppg), 9th in defensive FG% (38.1%) and 7th in 3 point defense (28.4%).
Pick: Going with the Under here. This is normally an Over series as 9 of the last 10 in the series has gone over the total but a closer look shows that 6 of those games went to OT and that in regulation the OU is 5-5 for the 10 games. We also note that the the Cardinals just can't score right now as they have averaged just 61.4 ppg in their last last 7 games and they have put up just 68.6 ppg at home. Defensively they are as solid as they come as they have allowed just 54.4 ppg at home and just 61.2 ppg in their last 5 games. The Irish are a good offensive team on the road, but i don't see them getting a whole lot vs this very tough Cardinal defensive team. Louisville did put up 81 points vs FSU in their last game, but they also went crazy from long distance and this is a very poor 3 point shooting team, so I don't see that happening again. Cardinal home games have averaged just 123 ppg, while their last 5 have put up just 123.6 ppg. I expect this one to be played in the 120s as well.
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