BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: Lousville @ Cincinnati

February 6, 2006


Big Monday is upon us again and a couple of the former Conference USA powers collide in a match-up that looked to be a promising one when the schedules were put together, but the meaning of this game has taken a surprising turn for both programs.

Louisville, fresh of a dramitic home win against Notre Dame, will look to build some momentum for the first time in conference play tonight in Cincinnait. The Cardinals, are 3-pt underdogs against the Bearcats, sit at 3-6 in the conference, tied with Rutgers, Providence and St John's for the fourth and final spot in the Big East tournament. Nothing is going to be easy for Louisville down the stretch, stealing one here on the road could set them up to pick up some steam heading down the stretch.

Sitting just one game ahead of Louisville in the conference standings at 4-5 is the Cincinnati Bearcats. The Bearcats have lost 6 of their last 8 games since senior Armien Kirkland went down with a season ending knee injury. Their offensive struggles against the quality teams in the conference have been pretty consistent since, scoring just 56 PPG in their 5 conference losses in that stretch. They lost 67-50 at Louisville just 12 days earlier.

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Even though Louisville has lost 5 of their last 7 games, head coach Rick Pitino is feeling better about their play of late. First and foremost, senior leader Taquan Dean is getting healthier and is contributing more and more each game and his 3-pter beating the buzzer to send the game against Notre Dame to overtime might have been the shot to potentially save the Louisville season. Even in their loss to Villanova last Monday, Louisville looked as good as they have all year for long stretches, now, they need to turn that into a few wins to start getting some momentum going forward. With Dean and David Padgett showing some added signs of life offensively of late, the scoring woes that haunted Louisville for a good portion of the early Big East schedule could be a thing of the past.

Although a game ahead of the Cardinals in the conference standings and on a similar run of losing, things seem to be a bit more pessimistic around the Bearcats. With a team that seems to get thinner in numbers every week and a group of players not used to losing, frustration has seemed to set in. They were not very competitve in road losses to Louisville and Georgetown before returning home to outlast South Florida. They fought hard early on against West Virginia, but once they fell behind, some of their frustration seemed to be turned towards each other, and, that is expected with how things have gone for Cincinnati this year and being up against the unforgiving Big East. For now, they are likely to go as far as their two senior leaders James White and Eric Hicks can take them without much help in the scoring, defensive or rebounding department from many others on their depleted roster.

Lately, Louisville has been pushing the tempo and finding success scoring the basketball. If they can establish that tempo tonight, it will be hard for Cincinnati to keep up. There is question as to whether Louisville freshmen Terrence Williams will be with the Cardinals tonight, but I was under the impression that his suspension was for one-game and would be back to add more depth and speed to the Louisville attack. The Cardinal pressure should make things tough for Cincinnati to get into their offensive flow. I do expect Cincinnati to come out spirited and play like their season is on the line and be energized by the partial home crowd, but that energy will only carry them so far and once Louisville gets control of the game, Cincinnati will have a tough time findins answers.

NBE Blogger Prediction:

Louisville 68 Cincinnati 61