By Derek DeBurger

Louisville will continue its race for a top-four seed with the Virginia Cavaliers on Sunday.

Starting the season on a strong 8-3 non-conference record, Virginia’s season began as one of the surprise teams in the conference. Since conference play has started, Virginia has fallen on hard times, going 5-10 thus far in the ACC.

Virginia has a decent offense led by two players who shoulder the bulk of the load. Kymora Johnson is the Cavs leading scorer and assister with 15.3 points and 5.4 assists per game. Johnson is a volume scorer who commands defensive attention, especially behind the three-point line. The second leading scorer for the Cavs, Camryn Taylor, puts up 14.5 points a game and leads a surprisingly fantastic rebounding group with 6.4 a game. No other Virginia scorers average double-digits because the Cavs—like Louisville—have more of a team approach to offense. Virginia averages 16.3 assists as a team, the 40th-best mark in the country.

The defense for Virginia is very boom or bust. The Cavs are very aggressive—8.1 steals a game and five blocks a game—but give up 69.5 points per game (278th). This disparity comes down to discipline. Virginia averages 19.4 fouls per game and 12 players fouled out of games this season. Louisville has a gaudy record under Jeff Walz when the Cards reach 70 points, so this game may come down to who can get to 70 first.

I mentioned it before, but Virginia is an incredible rebounding team. The Cavs are the 13th best rebounding team in the country with 42.9 boards a game. Louisville has done a very good job keeping with, and outrebounding, some of the best teams in the country in that department. Louisville has the physicality and depth to bang down low for a full 40 minutes, so let’s hope they fight in this matchup, too.

It’s currently an air-tight race for the top spots in the ACC standings, and Louisville has nearly no wiggle room. The race for the top overall spot is still alive, but it’s virtually out of the picture. Louisville just needs to take things one game at a time and take care of business.