BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: Louisville @ St John's

January 17, 2006


Louisville has been hobbled by injuries all season with Juan Palacios, David Padgett and Brian Johnson missing most of the preseason with ankle and knee problems. Johnson is still shelved at this time and then last week Taquan Dean's high ankle sprain forced him to miss an out of conference game against UC-Davis and obviously limited him agianst Pittsburgh to the point where it would be very surprising to see him on the floor tonight at all. Also, freshen Chad Millard missed the UC-Davis game after undergoing oral surgery due to a devastating blow to the chops in practice from the gangly Padgett and, after giving the Cards a lift in their first two conference games, he was largely ineffective against the Pitt Panthers.

St. John's is getting healthier as they got Daryll Hill back in time for their 68-49 win at South Florida, ending their 25-game streak of futility on the road. Tonight, they welcome Rick Pitino back to New York as they host Louisville in Madison Square Garden.

Louisville coach Rick Pitino has challenged his squad to get tougher in the Big East and St John's does have a roster of players that will get physical with you. They are very athletic and will try to prevent any flow on the offensive side for the Cardinals, a style that the finesse-driven Louisville will find very difficult to play against, especially if Palacious and Padgett continue to miss shots in close, like they did against Pittsburgh.

Not having Dean, who is also excellent defensively, is a big blow. Whereas Brandon Jenkins could step in defensively for Dean against Hill, he is not nearly the threat offensively. Terrence Williams picked up Dean's scoring slack against Pittsburgh with a career-high 25 pts, but the rest of the team, which is talented, managed just 32 pts. They will need to get Palacios and Padgett to assert themselves against Lamont Hamilton and Aaron Spears of St John's, if they can't, it is going to be a long night in NYC for Louisville.

St John's needs to have some offensive help to Hill, like their game with USF where Eugene Lawrence and Anthony Mason stepped up. In this game, it will probably have to come inside, as Louisville will put some athletes on the perimeter to defend and harass both Mason and Lawrence. Neither team is deep upfront, but Terrence Farley is a big body off the bench that is a luxury for Louisville. St John's has more athletes to bring in on the wing to play physical and intense defense all 40 minutes, so expect a struggle in scoring points for both teams.

Rick Pitino has publicly challenged his team to be tougher and trade body blows with the Big East teams, tonight, we will see if they are capable or not. They have UConn lurking next on the schedule, so this is an important game.

I think the Louisville players step up to the challenge, but so does Daryll Hill, and this comes down to the end, but when needed, Louisville still has a nice collection of talented players and gets just enough of a balanced attack to hold off SJU in thier upset bid.

NBE Blogger Prediction:

Louisville 64 St John's 61

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