By Derek DeBurger
No. 13 Louisville will play the No. 23 North Carolina Tar Heels in the Cards’ fourth ranked matchup of the season.
UNC will be a big change of pace as the first outright good team that the Cards will have played in the last couple of weeks. This game will determine what team will be at the top of the ACC standings.
The Tar Heels are led by star Deja Kelly who plays an average of 33.3 minutes a game out of a possible 40 minutes of game-time. Kelly scores 16.1 points per game off of pretty unimpressive shooting percentages—37.1% from the field and 28.6% from three.
The rest of the offense behind Kelly is solid, averaging 70.8 points per game. They play well as a team, averaging a respectable 13.3 assists to 12.2 turnovers per game. The ball movement is a major part of why the Tar Heels shoot 42% from the field, but it doesn’t explain their poor numbers from deep—shooting 28.5% from three. If Louisville can lock down the paint, something they’ve shown improvement with, then they can force the Tar Heels into threes and hopefully limit the offensive potential.
What makes the Tar Heels lethal is their hardnose defense and rebounding. UNC holds opponents to 58.6 points per game, they get 8.1 steals per game, and they grab 40.6 rebounds per game. Points are hard to come by against the Tar Heels. If Sunday’s matchup turns into a defensive standout, the Cards have the experience to get them to the other side.
This will be a very tough game, both in difficulty and physicality. While the outcome could go either way, I’m leaning towards a Louisville victory to keep the Cards alone in first place in the ACC.
