The Louisville Cardinals are at the Yum! Center on Wednesday night for a midweek matchup with Miami (OH) in the team’s final non-conference home game of the season.
Louisville enters the game 10-1 and fresh off of a big win over Eastern Kentucky on Saturday. The Cards dropped two spots in the AP poll to 3rd after losing its first game of the season last week in New York.
Jordan Nwora currently leads all ACC players in scoring at 21.3 points per game, with an average of 7.5 rebounds as well. Steven Enoch is up to 11.7 points and 7.3 rebounds per game.
For Miami, Nike Sibande and Dalonte Brown lead the way. Sibande averages 14.9 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 1.6 assist per game. Brown comes in at 13.3 points and 7.0 rebounds per contest.
The Redhawks are 5-5 on the season. They snapped a four game losing skid on Sunday with a 12 point win over Mississippi Valley State. Miami has particularly struggled on the defensive side of the floor this year. The team regularly plays two players over 6-foot-5 and opponents shoot nearly 55 percent from two-point range, good for 311th best in the nation. They don’t force turnovers and struggle to rebound as well. The defense rates 308th out of 353 on KenPom. Overall, its been a fairly disappointing season so far for the team who rated pretty well analytics-wise last season.
Like in some previous matchups this season, look for Louisville to impose its size advantage on this noticeably smaller team. Miami just does not have the roster to compete with this Cardinal team. There’s a 10 day layoff between this game and the Kentucky matchup so Louisville will be looking to get some momentum headed into the break.
Louisville is currently favored by 22.5 points. The game tips at 8:30 p.m. ET and will be televised live on ACC Network.
Prediction: Louisville 86 Miami (OH) 59
