Louisville basketball: 3 bold predictions vs. Virginia

Louisville will shoot 45 percent or better from three

Louisville’s going to get a lot of open looks from deep on Saturday when they battle with Virginia. If you look back to last seasons games, both of which should’ve been Cardinal wins, Louisville shot a combined 43 three’s including 25 in their first loss of the year.

Virginia’s defense is nearly identical to what we’ve become accustomed to seeing from Chris Mack here at Louisville, running the pack-line defense. They take away the dribble-drive and force teams into taking bad shots from either behind the three-point line or in the mid-range. Typically these shots aren’t great looks, and while Louisville banged home quite a few last year (21 combined in two games) most of them were forced shots that didn’t keep the Cards in the flow of the offense.

This season Virginia’s defense is good but not anywhere near the level of what we saw last season. With Ty Jerome, Kyle Guy, and De’Andre Hunter playing in the NBA, Tony Bennett was looked to Braxton Key, Kihei Clark, and Tomas Woldetensae to provide similar defensive abilities.

For Virginia, that has gone about exactly how you would expect as the Cavaliers have struggled to guard at the same level as last season while taking an even bigger step back offensively.

Over the last seven games, Virginia’s opponents have shot the three-pointer 16 times or more on six occasions, including four games where over 20 three-pointers were shot. I expect a similar output for Louisville, who has taken 20 three’s or more in each of their last five games. By now you’ve heard and probably seen how hot the Cards have been from deep, and I believe that will continue into Saturday.

Louisville is confident as ever shooting the ball, and while their shot selection at times has been iffy, for the most part, the three’s they’ve taken have been good looks. Watch for Jordan Nwora and Ryan McMahon to keep their hot shooting streaks going, but more importantly, I think the outcome of this game could be determined by how everyone else shoots from three.

Against Wake Forest, Louisville got key shooting from Malik Williams and especially Fresh Kimble in the second half and it made a huge difference in the outcome of the game. Virginia knows they can’t leave McMahon and Nwora open and if the Cards offense plays smart they’ll be able to take advantage of that.

I expect Louisville to take at least 20 three’s on Saturday against a really good three-point shooting defense and I think they’ll hit on at least 45 percent of those shots, falling short of their 49 percent shooting from deep over their nine-game winning streak.

Last season we saw how dangerous Louisville can be when shooting three’s at an elite level, and I expect that to be the same in a win over Virginia this year.