Kentucky Wildcat Basketball Preview – Know Your Enemy: Louisville Cardinals
By Paul Jordan
GAME 13
December 31, 2010 12:00 PM
KFC Yum! Center – Louisville, KY
LOUISVILLE CARDINALS (11-1)
TV – CBS
Series History
Kentucky leads 27-14
Recent Games
1/2/2010: KENTUCKY 71 Louisville 62
1/4/2009: Louisville 74 KENTUCKY 71
1/5/2008: Louisville 89 KENTUCKY 75
12/16/2006: KENTUCKY 61 Louisville 49
12/17/2005: KENTUCKY 73 Louisville 61
Seriously there really needs to be no more buildup for this game. Both teams are playing at the top of their games, and it’s Kentucky vs Louisville … Calipari vs Pitino. Seriously, what more buildup do we really need?
THE STARTERS
#3 – G – PEYTON SIVA – SO 5’11 180
11.5 ppg, 4.9 apg, 2.8 rpg
#2 – G – PRESTON KNOWLES – SR 6’1 190
15.2 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 2.2 apg
#5 – G – CHRIS SMITH – JR 6’2 200
8.7 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 1.8 apg
#14 – F – KYLE KURIC – JR 6’4 195
7.9 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 1.2 apg
#10 – C – GORGUI DIENG – FR – 6’10 215
5.8 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 0.5 apg
BACK COURT
Peyton “Better than John Wall” Siva is starting to live up to the expectations that Cardinal fans had for him as he is a good passer and creates shots for himself with the ball. Siva is an accurate shot, hitting 52.4% of his shot, but is just 29.4% from 3-point range. When he is hitting from beyond, he can fill the basket up as evidenced by his 29 points vs Western Kentucky. Siva does tend to turn the ball over some and play out of control a bit, but he is very good defensively and has had at least three steals in his last five games. Preston Knowles has absolutely been on fire lately, hitting 15-29 on three-pointers in his last three games, and having scoring games of 24, 15, and 31 points over those games. Knowles is averaging 7 3-pointer attempts a game and is hitting 40.5% of them. Knowles is also a pretty good rebounder and will throw in a few assists as well. From all indications, Elisha Justice will probably not play this game, so his minutes will be taken by Russ Smith. Smith, at 6’0, is a pretty good defender and has hit four of his five treys in the last three games.
FRONT COURT
Chris Smith has moved into the starting lineup after the ankle injury to Mike Marra and he is a bit undersized at 6’2. He has played well since being inserted into the lineup and had a 18 point game against WKU. He is an adequate rebounder but has had a couple of good assist games. One thing he does bring to the lineup is another 3-point shooter as he is hitting 12-23 attempts on the season. He has only had 5 attempts in the last four games however. Kyle Kuric is yet another 3-point threat as he has hit 45.2% of his treys on the season and is 11-21 his last three games and is coming off a 25 point performance vs Morgan State. Kuric is not much of a scorer unless he is knocking down the threes as 19 of his 28 FG’s have been 3-pointers. Kuric stats portray his as a one dimensional player as he does not have the rebounds you would want out of his position. Gorgui Dieng, to be polite, is a work in progress. While he does start, he only averages just 14 minutes a game so his stats are respectable when you take that into account. I have not seen him play, but he looks to be close to Manute Bol thin and I wonder how much banging he can take. He is pretty good at rebounding on both sides of the court, and he does have two 7 block games on the season. 6’9 Junior Terrence Jennings should see about 20 minutes or so and he is pretty productive when he is in. He is averaging 9.6 points and 5.3 boards a game, impressive for his playing time, and he also blocks a lot of shots a swell. Rakeem Buckles, at 6’7, provides size and production off the bench as well. Buckles is averaging 8.2 points and 7.5 boards a game and is hitting 47.6% of his treys.
OUTLOOK
So what is going to happen tomorrow? Louisville is all of a sudden the trendy pick to beat Kentucky in part due to the raucous crowd at the KFC Yum! Center. In part, I give that some credence, but not a lot. Kentucky has already faced raucous crowds against Washington and UNC and have played several NCAA Tournament teams already. Kentucky knows what it is like to go up against tough opponents and get knocked around a bit. Louisville has not been out of the state yet and has played just once game away from the Yum! Louisville has had a very soft slate thus far and their “good wins” against Butler and UNLV are against teams not currently rated.
The other big factor for UK will be their length and their defense. Kentucky has a nice height advantage over all the starters and Kentucky’s guards play even bigger than they are. Much has been made about Louisville’s 3-point shooting and they are averaging almost 10 made 3-pointers a game and their overall 3-point shooting percentage is 37.5%. Kentucky, on the other hand, is hitting 8 made treys a game and has a better percentage at 41.2%. In all reality, Louisville
‘ much hyped 3-point barrage has only made 17 more treys on the season than Kentucky’s against much softer opponents than Kentucky has faced. And I had to tell you that Louisville has not faced anything close to the defensive pressure that Kentucky is going to bring. Of Kentucky can keep UL in the low 30% range on their treys, it should be a good game for the Cats.
The key to this game is going to be composure. Kentucky knows that Louisville is going to go right at Harrellson and Jones to get them in foul trouble like UNC did. If Jones and Harrellson can keep their composure and limit the stupid fouls, this will be a huge Kentucky advantage. Rebounding will also be another key here. Kentucky is the 18th best rebounding team and Louisville is the 42nd best. And once again, Kentucky has done that against the 30th best schedule, Louisville’s the 90th.
There is also a misconception about Louisville’s depth and how they run 10 guys at you that average at least 15 minutes. Well, that used to be the case. We have just learned that in addition to Marra and Justice being out for the game, Rakeem Buckles will also miss the game due to a practice injury that he received today. Buckles will be a key loss as he was one of their better rebounders and this basically throws the Louisville’s depth argument out the window. It’s going to be Kentucky’s seven players versus Louisville’s seven players and I take KENTUCKY’s 86-75.
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