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The Louisville Cardinals were on the NCAA Tournament bubble until they pulled off a season sweep of then #1 ranked Syracuse in the final home game at Freedom Hall. The Louisville Cardinals finished the season at 20-12 and 11-7 in Big East play. Besides the sweep of Syracuse, the other big win for the Cardinals was a February victory over Notre Dame, 91-89. Rick Pitino did have some bad losses this season with dropping games to Charlotte (65-87) and Western Carolina (83-91) reminding Cats fans of some of Coach G’s big losses the previous two season to mid-major teams. Coach Rick Pitino is 38-13 in 14 NCAA Tournament appearances and took the Cardinals to the Elite Eight in the 2009 NCAA Basketball Tournament.

This season’s Cardinals have improved along with the performance of big man Samardo Samuels. Samuels has blossomed into the talent fans expected his freshman season, scoring 15.3 ppg and grabbing 7.0 rpg. Jared Swopshire has also improved this year increasing his scoring average to 7.6 ppg and has a 3 point shot to go with his inside game.

Louisville averages 8 3 pointers a game. When they are at or above their season average of 33% from 3, they are a difficult team to beat. When they are under 30 % and are turning the ball over, games like the Charlotte facality have occurred. Edgar Sosa has matured significantly since he first came to Louisville, and is averaging 4.5 apg running the point for Coach Pitino while averaging 13.3 ppg. Fellow senior guard, Reginald Delk, is only averaging 6.6 ppg but when he gets hot, he is capable of 20 or more a game with his 3 point shot.

Overall, Louisville is averaging 76.7 ppg on offense while giving up 69.6 ppg on defense. The Cardinals shoot 44.8 % from the field and hold opponents to a 43% shooting average from the field. The Cardinals are a decent free throw shooting team at 70.6 % and have a team assist to turnover ratio of just over 1.1 per game.

The Cardinals are a #9 seed in this year’s tourney and will take on California in their opening round game. If they are able to make it to the 2^nd round, they will likely take on the #1 seed Duke Blue Devils.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 3:24 pm and is filed under 2010 NCAA Tournament. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.