Staff picks: Can Pitt take down Louisville?
The Pitt vs. Louisville basketball series has been about as one-sided as it can be. The Cardinals have dominated the Panthers through the years, owning a 21-7 all-time advantage. Pitt is just 2-5 against Louisville under Jeff Capel. The Panthers are just 1-12 all-time in Louisville, with the lone win over the Cardinals coming back in 2006.
Louisville has been one of the mainstay powers of college basketball through the years, but that program is hardly recognizable this season. The Cardinals are off to a dreadful 2-16 start to the season. Louisville will carry a seven-game losing streak into tonight's game as they are coming off of a 21-point loss to North Carolina on Saturday.
The Cardinals are under the direction of first-year head coach Kenny Payne. Needless to say he has a long way to go to turn things around judging by his first year. Louisville has struggled this year, but they are led by one of the better guards in the ACC. El Ellis scores 17.7 per game to go along with 4.7 assists. Nobody else on the roster currently averages double figures.
Pitt snapped a two-game losing streak on Saturday with a sound 71-60 win over Georgia Tech in Atlanta. The Panthers were led by sixth man Nike Sibande, who came off the bench to post a team-high 21 points. Pitt enters this game with a 5-2 record in ACC play, and will need a win to keep pace with the other teams in the top half of the league.
Can Pitt avoid an upset and win in Louisville foe the first time since 2006? The Panther-Lair.com staff gives their picks.
Stephen Gertz (13-5): No reason to get cute here. The Louisville Cardinals are one of the worst teams in the country, and by far the worst Power 5 team. There are reasons for that, reasons that play into the hands of the Pittsburgh Panthers. For starters, they turn the ball over on just about 25% of their possessions and high-volume of those are unforced; Louisville is the second worst team in the nation in that regard. The Cardinals do not shoot the ball well from anywhere either. The one thing that could give Pitt trouble is that they do get to the free line at a decent rate. But the Panthers are rolling right now and are mature enough not to look past an ACC road game. Perhaps they come out a little flat early - UNC did the same thing recently - but I do not think Louisville can sustain any run they manage.
Prediction: Pitt 75, Louisville 62
Houston Wilson (12-6): Similar to the Georgia Tech game, this is a game where losing hurts Pitt more than winning. Louisville is an absolute mess. There simply is no reason why Pitt should lose this game and I think they will dominate from start to finish. The most important thing for Pitt right now is to continue to stack up wins against these teams they should beat so they don’t find a bad loss on their resume.
Prediction: Pitt 79, Louisville 62
Matt Steinbrink (9-9): Pitt has not had a lot of success at Louisville. They have yet to win at the Yum Center and have struggled mightily. With where both teams are right now, this is essentially a must win for Pitt. They have to end the streak and avoid any more bad losses as they try to develop their resume. For the most, with the exception of one game, the Cardinals have been dominated in league play. Pitt has not really ran anyone out of the gym, so I don’t know if that is in the cards. The key is to jump on them early and they will likely roll over. The Panthers need this one and a nice little streak to maintain the momentum.
Prediction: Pitt 76, Louisville 64
Jim Hammett (11-7): In his first year at Pitt, Jeff Capel pulled an upset over Louisville. Now in his fifth season, he will be looking to avoid a pretty significant upset. Louisville is not what we are used to seeing from this program, and this perhaps will go down as the worst season in school history. The Cardinals have been that bad. El Ellis is a very dangerous player, and of course some of the guys on the roster were highly rated out of high school, so you have to respect them to a degree, but this is a team Pitt needs to go in and just beat. The Panthers are the better team, and I expect them to show that.
Prediction: Pitt 75, Louisville 62
Chris Peak (12-6): Never mind the jinxes: we all have to pick Pitt on this one. The Panthers have simply been better than Louisville this season, and while the Georgia Tech football game in the fall was a stark reminder that even a struggling team can pull off a win every now and then - and it’s probably more likely in basketball than in football - I’m sticking with Pitt. My one concern, which was apparent in the Georgia Tech game last Saturday, is the scoring drought. The Panthers went 5:44 without a bucket late in that game, but unlike Clemson and Duke, the Yellow Jackets weren’t good enough to capitalize. I don’t think Louisville will be good enough to capitalize in a similar situation tonight, but I also don’t know if Pitt will keep its turnovers as low tonight as it did on Saturday (which helped keep GT out of it). Ultimately, it would be in the Panthers’ best interests to avoid the scoring drought all together. If Nelly Cummings can carry over the second half that he had at Georgia Tech, I think they’ll be just fine.
Prediction: Pitt 81, Louisville 68