Louisville basketball: Cards vs. Indiana State game day central

Who: No. 4 Louisville Cardinals vs. Indiana State Sycamores

Where: KFC Yum! Center, Louisville, Kentucky

When: 8:00 PM ET, Wednesday, November 13th

Tickets: As low as $6 per StubHub.com

Previous Meeting and Series: 12/6/2018 – Louisville: 83, Indiana State: 43

Officials: Raymie Styons, Tony Henderson, Clarence Armstrong

How To Watch: ACC Network – Jay Alter and Malcom Huckaby

How To Listen: 840 WHAS AM – Paul Rogers and Bob Valvano

Players to Watch

Tyreke Key 

What makes Indiana State a semi-dangerous team this early in the season is star guard and 2018-19 MVC Second Team All-Conference selection Tyreke Key.

Last season the 6’2 guard averaged nearly 18 points per game, shooting 53 percent from the field and an incredible 45 percent from deep. While he wasn’t necessarily an efficient player all the time, Key demonstrated the ability to be able to lead his team in scoring and carry them at times on his home.

Thankfully for him, he’s got more help this season but once again he’ll be asked to have a special performance if Indiana State has any chance of staying in this one. Against Dayton, Key was incredible scoring 21 points total, including 17 in the second half, helping the Sycamores nearly pull off the upset.

Louisville hasn’t shown a ton of weaknesses this season, but one area where they’ll have to improve is limiting penetration. Miami’s Chris Lykes and Youngstown State’s Darius Quisenberry were both able to hit big shots from outside as well as get into the paint with ease against Louisville’s best defenders.

With Key capable of filling up a stat sheet quickly, I expect Coach Mack to make ball penetration and closeouts a priority this week in practice. For Indiana State, Ryan McMahon will likely be one of three guards to go head-to-head with Key, which will be a matchup I’d expect the Sycamores and Greg Lansing to attempt to exploit.

Samuell Williamson

In the season opener against Miami, freshman Samuell Williamson looked the part of a one-and-done player. Sure, Louisville has had plenty of McDonald’s All-Americans and incoming freshman with a ton of hype, but none that I can recall looked as impressive right off the bat as Williamson.

However, after scoring 13 points in the season opener against Miami Williamson struggled a bit more than expected against Youngstown State. While he by no means played poorly, Williamson struggled with his shot going 3-8 from the field scoring just six points.

Williamson never took bad shots or forced action, he simply just couldn’t get his shots to fall which is bound to happen over the course of a long season for just about every player. But what was great to see about Williamson during his shooting struggles was that it didn’t affect the rest of his game, showing his maturity for a freshman. Williamson was everywhere for Louisville, grabbing five rebounds, dished out two assists, and blocked one shot in 23 minutes of play, playing a huge role in Louisville being able to keep the lead at a big enough distance to feel comfortable.

Against Indiana State, I’ll be looking for Williamson to be even more aggressive off the bench. Louisville has had just 12 points scored off the bench this season apart from Williamson, so even at a young age, Chris Mack will be reliant upon Williamson being able to add a scoring punch off the bench and keep Louisville in games when the starters have to come out and get a breath.

There’s not much of anyone on Indiana State’s bench who will be able to match up with Williamson and because of that, I expect him to have a career day on Wednesday night.

Jordan Barnes

Normally when you go up against teams in the mid-major to low-major ranks, you expect them to have at least one player who is capable of scoring at a high-level. However, in the case of Indiana State, Louisville will have to deal with two dynamic, scoring guards.

We’ve already talked about Tyreke Key, but another name Louisville fans will want to watch out for is point guard Jordan Barnes.

The 5’10 point guard was a Missouri Valley Conference Preseason First Team selection in 2018-19 and is currently the program’s third all-time leader in 3-pointers made. He’s capable of scoring from just about anywhere on the floor and doesn’t need a whole lot of space to do so.

Darius Perry will likely be the player tasked with stopping Barnes, which could be a good sign. While Darius Quisenberry of Youngstown State made a couple of big shots he only finished the game with 11 points on 13 shots.

Perry was uber aggressive against Quisenberry and did a great job of keeping him from being able to get the ball in spots that allowed for penetration and quick shots. While there were a few slip-ups, Perry typically was not the reason for those.

Barnes will be an even bigger challenge for Perry, Fresh Kimble, and Ryan McMahon who will alternate in the lineup. He’s quick, lethal from deep, and does a great job of getting his teammates involved.

Fresh Kimble

As I mentioned before, Louisville’s bench outside of Samuell Williamson has accounted for just 12 points through two games with six coming from grad transfer Fresh Kimble against Miami and six from Quinn Slazinski in garbage time against Youngstown State.

Louisville’s starters have been absolutely dominant so far. In both games, four of five starters have scored in double-digits with three scoring at least 16 or more in both contests. When the reserves have come in, that’s when Louisville’s seen their overall level of play dip.

In order to win at a high level in both the ACC and the NCAA Tournament, someone other than Williamson will have to step up and provide scoring and overall playmaking. That guy has to be none other than Kimble.

We heard all offseason about Kimble’s ability to score, but so far it’s been a struggle as he’s tried to get acclimated to his new team and new role. Kimble’s combined to go 2-11 from the field in his first two games as a Cardinal, but has dished out eight assists compared to just three turnovers.

There’s no reason to believe that Indiana State can’t be the game where Kimble gets going. Kimble is a dynamic scorer who can hot quickly, but right now looks to be lacking confidence. Wednesday can change all of that for Kimble.

Predictions

Jacob Lane: Louisville 87, Indiana State 59

• Ryan McMahon scores 15 points or more
• All five Louisville starters finish in double figures
• Louisville’s bench continues to struggle

Presley Meyer: Louisville 94, Indiana State 71

• Steven Enoch goes for a third straight double-double
• Dwayne Sutton bounces back with a double-digit scoring performance
• 10 players total score for the Cards