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The ninth-ranked Louisville Cardinals welcome in the Miami Hurricanes tonight in ACC College Basketball action. The game is scheduled for an 8:00 p.m. start time and it will be televised live on ESPN Full Court. Currently the Betting Odds for the game have the Cardinals favored in this one by a comfortable margin on the road.
Louisville has raced out to 18 wins this season despite having a pretty tough schedule, having won three straight overall as well. The Cardinals just picked up a big win at home over North Carolina in a game they trailed in the second half, but came back to win in overtime. Tonight's game at Miami is the first of two road games for Rick Pitino's group as they have a monster game on deck at Virginia on Saturday night.
Miami has been up and down all season, having crept into the Top 25 but recently falling out. The Hurricanes have dropped two straight to poor opponents in Georgia Tech and Florida State. The loss to the Yellow Jackets gave Georgia Tech its only conference win of the season, but also remember that Miami won AT Duke and also took Virginia to overtime — they're a bit of a hit-or-miss type of team.
The Hurricanes don't score a lot of points (68.7 per game), aren't a great rebounding team either. Louisville is good at both and has an advantage on the glass inside tonight. The Cardinals defense is also much stronger than Miami's offense — Louisville scores 5.8 blocks per game (11th) while swiping 9.3 steals per game (eighth) and they allow opponents to score just 59 points on average.
Tonight Miami has to play its best game of the season to win. It will have to mirror the effort at Duke but even that might not be enough. Terry Rozier leads Louisville with better than 18 points and five rebounds per game while Montrezl Harrell and Wayne Blackshear will plug up the paint. Harrell is a a legitimate rim protector and savage underneath on offense as well.
Sheldon McClellan and Angel Rodriguez are going to have to set the style of play for Miami. The Hurricanes have played up to bigtime opponents this season but also have shown they struggle against weaker competition. It doesn't get much bigger than Louisville coming to town, but Miami isn't going to pick up a win here with the Cardinals looking to get back into the ACC title discussion.
Free Pick: Louisville 68, Miami 60
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