Louisville basketball: Predicting the 2019 non-conference schedule

Louisville basketball recently revealed the 2019-20 non-conference schedule, and we break down the Cards’ chances of winning each game.

We are less than three months away from the tip-off of Louisville basketball season.

As one of the most heavily-anticipated seasons in program history approaches on the horizon, the Cardinals are beginning to (publicly) finalize the remainder of their schedule.

On Thursday we learned what Louisville’s non-conference schedule will look like, and we are here to provide some reaction, and give a breakdown of the Cards’ chances of winning each game before entering an always-daunting ACC slate.

Keep in mind that the Cards’ season will open a bit differently from now on. Since the ACC’s partnership with ESPN and the ACC Network, every ACC team will open the season with a conference game.

This year, Louisville starts things out on November 5th at Miami before returning home for 9 out of their 11 conference games.

But let’s get right to it and break down Louisville basketball’s 2019-20 non-conference schedule:

The easy wins

Louisville starts the season with a slate of five home games that should be nothing but warm-ups for the rest of the schedule.

Not to belittle the competition, but the Cardinals play some teams that they should absolutely destroy. Outside of North Carolina Central, who made the NCAA tournament after a miraculous conference tourney run, Louisville doesn’t play a team that even sniffed the 2019 postseason until December.

Here’s what the Cards’ schedule of cupcakes looks like, with their final 2019 Ken Pomeroy rankings in parentheses (for perspective, UofL finished 23rd):

November 10th – Youngstown State (259)

November 13th – Indiana State (208)

November 17th – North Carolina Central (303)

November 20th – USC Upstate (336)

November 24th – Akron (108)

December 14th – Eastern Kentucky (235)

December 18th – Miami (OH) (148)

We could go through and breakdown each one of these teams. However, the bottom line is that if Louisville drops any of these games, it will be a major upset and huge blemish on their NCAA tournament resume.

These seven games will be the “getting to know the team” type of games. Maybe Louisville tries to work out some early kinks or experiment with the playbook. But the last quarter of these match-ups are likely to heavily feature true freshmen and walk-ons for the Cards.

Perhaps teams like Akron and Miami, Ohio will provide a formidable test, but they should still be games that Louisville has a handle on from the start. The best player on any of these teams is unlikely to see any playing time as a Cardinal.

If there’s a team most likely to spring an upset among this group, Indiana State deserves some attention. The Sycamores beat Indiana in a shocker early last season, and they return the core of their roster looking to make an early statement.

Early prediction: 7-0