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Five things Louisville basketball must do to beat UK

By Tanner Hickman

BLOOMINGTON, IN - DECEMBER 08: Jordan Nwora #33 of the Indiana Hoosiers dribbles the ball against the Louisville Cardinals at Assembly Hall on December 8, 2018 in Bloomington, Indiana. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
BLOOMINGTON, IN - DECEMBER 08: Jordan Nwora #33 of the Indiana Hoosiers dribbles the ball against the Louisville Cardinals at Assembly Hall on December 8, 2018 in Bloomington, Indiana. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /
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Yuck things up on defense 

The first step starts on the defensive end. In their last outing against Robert Morris, the Cards opened the second half with a 20-2 run that was initiated by a string of defensive stops.

This will likely be the first time that the Cats have faced a pack line defense this season, and it is important that they execute their defense with extreme focus. It is especially important that whenever the extra defender comes to hedge a screen that they either get up into the face of the ball handler so he’s unable to see the defender that is typically wide-open around the baseline, or the extra defender will have to recover quickly to his man.

Another key that worked for Louisville in their win against Michigan State was the way they made it hard for the ball handlers to get a pass into the bigs. Malik Williams specifically did a great job of denying the entry pass to Nick Ward by fronting the Michigan State big man.

At the very least, by doing this it made Michigan State go deep into the shot clock before they could get something out of their offense.

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