BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: Louisville @ Villanova

January 30, 2006


Prior to the season, Big Monday looked to have a marquee Big East match-up with Louisville travelling to meet Villanova for a battle of two of the top teams in the conference. However, in the first month of conference play, only one of these two teams have kept up their end of the bargain.

Villanova is gunning to become the first Big East team to seven conference wins as they enter tonight's contest with a 6-1 mark in league play. The Wildcats edged South Florida and Notre Dame on the road last week and return home to Philadelphis for tonight's game.

Louisville enters the conference mid-point mark at 2-5 in league play following their loss on the road to Rutgers at the RAC on Saturday. The Cardinals are in desperate need of wins and have already suffered a home loss to Villanova in their conference opener.

Here are a list of preview stories on the game from the internet:

UL Not Giving Up Hope Yet (Louisville Courier-Journal)
Louisville Just a Big East Baby (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Pitino's Brickinos Can't Solve Shooting Woes (Lexington Herald-Leader)

For our brief preview and game prediction...CLICK "Read More" BELOW


Villanova enters tonight's game as 10-pt favorites over the Louisville Cardinals. Villanova won the first meeting between the two teams at Freedom Hall, 76-67. With thier unique 4-guard line-up, the Wildcats will again look to apply pressure on the ball against Louisville and force them to play a little faster than they would like. In their first meeting, the undersized Wildcats out-rebounded the bigger Cards, 42-34, including 13-7 on the offensive boards, and Louisville struggled shooting, hitting just 3-20 from 3-pt range against the perimeter pressure.

Louisville has lost three of their last four conference game and has been abysmal offensively in those losses ((SJU, UConn, Rutgers) averaging just 57 PPG and shooting 14-64 from 3-pt range (22%). Not what one would expect from a Rick Pitino team.

Taquan Dean is back for Louisville and has averaged 14.5 PPG in 27 minutes a game since returning from a high ankle sprain. He is still not 100% and battling the Villanova on the ball pressure will not be an easy task for a healthy guard. David Padgett and Juan Palacios must step up and help alleviate the pressure on the guards by being able to create their own opportunities and be available for the ball. Adjusting to the physical and intense nature of Big East basketball has been a slow process for their finesse-style big men, but lingering injuries have hampered any consistency they might have been able to produce.

Villanova is a team full of experience and skill. The fact that they can continue to outrebound opponents on sheer determination and effort is remarkable, even when their shots are not falling from the perimeter, they dig down even harder on the defensive end and are willing to do what it takes to ear the W. They are an excellent free throw shooting team that thrives in the pressure situations.

Louisville knows they need to start winning games, home and on the road, but finding the right mix tonight is going to be very difficult.

NBE Blogger Prediction:

Villanova 74 Louisville 63

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BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: Louisville @ Rutgers

January 28, 2006

A pair of 2-4 conference teams meet Saturday at the RAC when Louisville travels to New Jersey to meet Rutgers in a Big East conference game. I do not think either team was expecting to be under .500 in the conference after six games. Louisville, in their first season in the Big East, has been hit hard by the injury big that just doesn't seem to want the Cardinals to get away. Rutgers, well, seems too much of the same 'ol same 'ol for Gary Waters' program as they fell behind by 20 points in the first half, at home, to Providence and lost by 10.

Click below for the rest of our preview and prediction on this game and don't forget to leave your prediction in the comments section.

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Louisivlle showed some impressive life in their last game, a 67-50 home win over Cincinnati and the Cardinals got just what the doctor ordered, a win. With their top player Taquan Dean back in the line-up, everything about Louisville looked better. With a brutal conference schedule, Louisville has very little margin for error ahead, so winning on the road in this spot is of the utmost importance. Dean, who missed their loss to St John's in Madison Square Garden, returns to his home state (Dean is a native of Neptune, NJ) of New Jersey in a homecoming of sorts.

Rutgers usually likes to rely on some RAC magic to spring a few surprises a year and they were hoping to capitalize on that magic this season to make some noice in the conference and nationally. Off to just a 1-3 start in the conference at home (losing to Villanova, Pitt and PC while beating SHU), they find their backs against the wall with three straight losses and three road contests (SU, SHU, ND) following Saturday's game. Following their loss to Providence, the Scarlet Knights should have a spirited effort up their sleeve and a crowd ready to rock the RAC.

To get the home faithful excited, Quincy Douby can not duplicate his 5-20 shooting effort against Providence in this game. As Rutgers sole respected scoring threat, there is simply no room for error from their junior scoring machine. Douby definitely relishes his role as the all-important go-to-guy for Rutgers, but he will need help. Anthony Farmer has been in a deep shooting slump since injuring his wrist and injuries to Adrian Hill (knee) and Byron Joynes (shoulder) seems to keep popping up and slowing their interior production. The talented JR Inman has yet to find a consistent role in the offense, besides some 3-pt shooting here and there and senior Marquis Webb is more of a defensive contributor than an offensive threat.

Louisville looked like a different team on Wednesday night, but now they have to do it on the road. Rutgers is not the same type of physical defenders on the perimeter as St John's is, who gave the Cardinals a lesson on physical play, but Webb is one of the best perimeter defenders in the league and will pose a big threat to Dean's production. David Padgett was hobbled again by a sore knee against Cincinnati, so his status is a big concern. Juan Palacios should find a favorable match-up in this game and is coming off an impressive 19-pt, 12-rebound performance against Cincinnati last time out.

Sometime this season, the RAC has to jump up and bite someone. No time seems better than when the Scarlet Knights are coming off a disappointing home loss and being counted out with Louisville riding a bit of a high off their win over Cincinnati and Villanova peeking their head around the corner for a Wednesday night game.

NBE Blogger Prediction:

Rutgers 66 Louisville 65

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BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: Cincinnati @ Louisville

January 25, 2006


In what promised to be a new Big East spotlight game has definitely taken a new look as Cincinnati and Louisville have embarked on their initial Big East campaigns. Cincinnati has been besieged by player losses due to transfers and injury, let alone the ousting of Bob Huggins. Louisville has been battling their own injury issues since the summer and continue to be a battered and bruised team as the calendar heads towards February. A loss here, and making the Big East tournament becomes the main goal of the rest of the season.

Here is a list of articles found on the net today previewing the Cincinnati/Louisville game:

Its Getting Late Early for Cards (Louisville Courier-Journal)
Seven Steps to Save Cardinals Season (Louisville Courier-Journal)
Cardinals Scrambling as Cincinnati Comes to Town (Lexington Herald-Leader)
UC, UL Share Fears (Cincy Enquirer)
Must Win Game for UL, UC (Cincy Post)
Cards Face Must-Win Situation (Kentucky.com)

Click below for our brief preview and prediction on this game and don't forget to leave your prediction in the comments section.

READ REST OF PREVIEW...CLICK "Read More" BELOW


Louisille finds themselves in unfamiliar territory at just 1-4 in conference play and staring right down the barrel of a gun with their conference schedule. They have already lost home conference games to Villanova, Pittsburgh and Connecticut and still must face Cincinnati, Syracuse, West Virginia, Villanova and Connecticut on the road (let alone a trip to the RAC)! So, if any team has their back against the wall in need of a home win, it is the Cardinals.

Louisville might get some good news tonight as Taquan Dean is expected to be able to play. Louisville has struggled in scoring points all season and with Dean missing virtually all of their past three conference games, things have not gotten any easier as the Cards have scored just 56,57 and 58 pts in each of the three games. With 3-pt shooting being a staple in the Louisville offense, missing Dean has hurt them even more, especially as they shot 2-20 from beyond the arc against Connecticut on Saturday night.

The Bearcats also know frustration, after exceeding expectations with a 10-game winning streak, Cincinnati lost senior Armien Kirkland for the season with a knee injury against UConn which began a 3-game losing streak, which they snapped with a 71-66 home win over Rutgers on Sunday. Down to 8 scholarship players (with just 6 playing meaningful minutes) the Bearcats have turned to the football team to help in numbers. They still have talent and experience with seniors James White, Eric Hicks, Jihad Muhammad and Chadd Moore and the exciting freshmen Devan Downey, but that is all they have to put on the floor.

Cincinnati will still go after you very hard and hit the board with aggression, led by Hicks and Cedric McGowan. Any foul trouble to those two can cripple thier efforts. James White is still a big scoring threat that seems to be coming into his own this season under Andy Kennedy.

Louisville still looks to play a finesse style and having Dean's ability to score from the perimeter is a key in being able to do this. With his presence, Juan Palacios and David Padgett find more space to isolote themselves and take their man facing up. It also allows Andre McGee, Brandon Jenkins and Terrence Williams to play roles that are more comfortable.

Louisville comes into the game as a 1-pt favorite. I think the key match-up is whichever team gets the infusion of scoring from Dean or Jihad Muhammad, because each would be a welcome surprise over their last game. I liked the way UC competed at Xavier in that atmosphere and I think they will have just a little bit too much, barring foul trouble, tonight for Louisville if Dean is not close to 100%.

NBE Blogger Prediction:

Cincinnati 68 Louisville 66

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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

Leave your prediction in the comment section!

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BIG EAST GAME PREVIEW: Villanova @ Louisville

January 5, 2005


When the new Big East was put together, this was a match-up that everyone was ready to see right away and the conference delivers in the first week of conference play. So far the home team has prevailed in all four conference games to date, will that trend continue?

Currently, Villanova is the #1 rated team in the Pomeroy Computer Ratings and the Pomeroy Computer expects a 9-pt win for the Wildcats over Louisville, their 42nd ranked team, in Freedom Hall tonight. One word of caution, that was the exact same pick the computer had with UConn over Marquette.

So far this season, Villanova has raced out to a 9-0 start and a #5 RPI rating versus a strength of schedule rank of 49. They are 3-0 against the top 50 and 5-0 overall against the top 100. Louisville, meanwhile, is off to an 11-1 start, albeit it against considerably less competition with a SOS rank of 191. They have yet to beat a top 50 team (losing at Kentucky) and are 2-1 against the top 100 to date.

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Villanova has yet to venture too far from home, leaving the state of Pennslvania just twice to play in nearby Trenton and Atlantic City against Rider and Longwood and played away from Philadelphia just one other time, at Bucknell. They had an impressive home win over Oklahoma on their campus and, as everyone knows, they use their 4-guard line-up to pressure the ball just over half court on defense and create open looks from the perimeter from their ability to breakdown defenses and dish to the open shooter.

Villanova is led by their two all-conference senior guards, Allan Ray and Randy Foye. Ray averages 20.4 PPG and is a true NCAA shooting guard. When he is on, he will hit shots from beyond the arc at will, where about 65% of his shot attempts come from. He also hits over 90% of his free throws. Foye averages 20.3 PPG and leads the team in rebounds (5.8/game) and assists (4.2/game) and has been playing like an All-American with his all-around game this year. Mike Nardi has improved his consistency this year, scoring nearly 13 PPG and shooting 49% from the floor and 46% from 3-pt range, both big improvements over last year. The fourth member of the 4-headed guard monster for Villanova is their energy man, Kyle Lowry. Lowry is averaging 10 PPG, 4 rebounds, almost 4 assists and leads the team with 1.8 steals a game in 24 minutes (he missed the large part of 2 games with a minor injury to skew the stats a little bit). These four account for 77% of Villanova's scoring output and they use senior Jason Fraser (5 PPG, 4 RPG), junior Will Sheridan (5 PPG, 5 RPG) and frosh Dante Cunningham (3 PPG, 4 RPG) in a rotation at the 5 and about 20 minutes at the 4, when they are not using their 4-guard look. Freshmen Shane Clark, who saw his first action of the season against Temple could also figure in this mix as time goes on, but I do not expect him to be much of a factor tonight.

With Louisville, we are just not exactly sure of what they have yet. They only have three returning scholarship players that see significant time and are led by senior Taquan Dean, their leading scorer at 16.7 PPG. Dean also averages over 6 rebounds a game and leads the team in assists (4.0/game). Dean shoots a lot (173 attempts on the year) and is off to a slow start, for him, at 38% from the floor and less than 35% from 3-pt range. The added responsibility has left him a little less effecient than in the past. The other three main players are junior Brandon Jenkins (12 PPG, 3 rpg, 3 apg and leads the team with 1.7 steals/game), sophomore transfer David Padgett(11.6 ppg, team leading 6.5 rpg, 2.4 apg and team high 1.5 blocks/game) and sophomore Juan Palacios (11 PPG, 6 rpg). Palacios and Padgett missed almost the entire preseason due to a variety of foot and ankle injuries that have led to them still rounding into shape, even as conference play begins. Athletic freshmen Terrence Williams leads their group of frosh with 7.6 PPG and 4.5 rebounds and frosh PG Andre McGee also sees plenty of action and adds 4 PPG. Highly regarded redshirt freshmen big man Brian Johnson has also been hobbled by knee problems, but gives the Cardinals some more depth up front. It is a tough match-up for him.

Lately, Louisville has been playing more and more zone defense, which is the right move, in my opinion, when playing Villanova, despite their ability to hit from the perimeter. A zone could be extended against Villanova, not worrying about a soft middle too much, and help with the dribble penetration against the Villanova guards. They have to keep from contracting too much and allowing the open perimeter look. Louisville should have a decided advantage on the boards. It will be interesting to see how the Louisville guards handle the Villanova on the ball pressure which works to force the offense to be run outside the comfort zone of their normal offense. I do think Louisville is a little suspect on their perimeter ball-handling as a team and Villanova will try to cause havoc here.

This is a really tough game to predict. I am not sure if Louisville has played a team that is this quick and this strong on the perimeter. Kentucky was a good test for them and they were never in the game, but this time, they are home. I think their zone will slow down the Villanova offense, which averages over 80 PPG, but I do not think their big men have the hunker-down, impose their will mentality to take advantage of a 4-guard line-up in the half court. A great shooting night from Dean would help, but the Wildcats offensive firepower will hit at the right time and their experience will show they can handle this tough spot.

NBE Blogger Prediction:

Villanova 74 Louisville 68

Please leave your prediction in the comments section!!

So far, the NBE Blogger is 3-1 picking games outright and 2-2 against posted spreads. Villanova is a 3-pt road favorite tonight.

Here are some game preview stories from around the net:

Rick Bozich of the Louisville Courier-Journal: Its Finally Time for the Real College Hoops Season.
Cards Open with a Biggie (Louisville C-J)
Card's Begin Murderer's Row (Lexington Herald-Leader)
Cardinals Defense Getting Better (Louisville C-J)
Nova vs Louisville a Revival Meeting (Philly Daily News)
First Big test for Villanova (Delaware County Times)

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