By Derek DeBurger and Elizabeth Scanland
The Louisville Cardinals will host the Bellarmine Knights in a cross-town showdown.
Bellarmine is having a tough start to their season, starting off 0-4 and falling to 10th in the ASUN conference.
Ugly offense
The Knights are one of the worst teams in the country in a number of statistics. They rank 331st on Kenpom, they’re one of the worst three-point shooting teams at 31.4% and struggle defensively in just about every area.
The Knights have also struggled with turnovers as they already have 61 of the season to just 51 assists. This is particularly notable considering their offensive scheme is Scotty Davenport’s unique “offensive press” where constant and crisp ball movement throughout the duration of the shot clock wears down an opposing defense and gives the Knights easy looks.
However, if Bellarmine turns the ball over at the rate they do they’re unable to exploit the cracks in defenses and break down undisciplined teams.
Despite their lack of success thus far, Louisville will still need to remain vigilant if they want to stop this offense. Louisville currently has the highest turnover rate in the country, so they’ll need to rely on their length and aggressiveness to get out in the fast break and score easy buckets.
Bellarmine’s offensive press also breeds one of the slowest offenses in the country, only averaging 67.5 possessions a game. This is in direct contrast to Louisville’s up-and-down NBA-style offense. It’s easier to slow a game down than to speed it up, so don’t be surprised if the Cards have a scoring night isn’t stellar on paper.
Forward Jack Karasinski will be a player to watch for the Knight averaging, 18.2 points a night and is the best player at holding onto the ball that Bellarmine has.
Short but not stout
Bellarmine is not tall in the slightest. The Knights have an average team height of 6’4.5″, with their tallest player being the 6’8″ Curt Hopf. Louisville has struggled to rebound so far this season. If they don’t take advantage of the height mismatch, the Cards may just have to accept the fact that they’re a bad rebounding team.
The lack of height is also a major contributing factor toward Bellarmine’s awful defense.
Despite playing one of the slowest tempos in Division-1, Bellarmine gives up a staggering 78.5 points per game. Another reason of why the Knights give up so many points is that they gamble heavily on the defensive end, however, they’re only moderately successful at it. They average 7.8 steals a game, and the gambling has led them to get gashed in the paint with only six blocks in four games.
Louisville has been one of the better teams this season at holding onto the ball, but they’ll have to actively try to keep it that way in Tuesday’s game.
Coming off a disappointing loss to Tennessee, the Cards should be fired up and well rested after a little over a week without playing in a game. It’s no secret that the Cards struggled last game especially with the lack of ability to rebound the ball and three point shooting. However, with plenty of time to clean this up, Cards fans shouldn’t have to worry much going into this game. Guard Renye Smith will have to get going early to give the Cards a huge advantage early as he is one of the team’s best three point shooters and can be hard to stop when he gets going.
The Cards should easily be able to walk away with the win and advance to 2-1.
Photo by Vinny Porco
