By Derek DeBurger

The Louisville Cardinals will head back to the Bahamas to take on the No. 16 Indiana Hoosiers on as a part of the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis tournament.

This will mark the second year in a row that the Cards face the Hoosiers in an early-season tournament, with IU getting the best of Louisville last time out.

Bully ball

Indiana will provide a physical matchup for Louisville, which has proven to be their nightmare matchup so far in the Pat Kelsey-era.

Mike Woodson loves to run through his bigs, and they have Oumar Ballo, Malik Reneau and Mackenzie Mgbako to lock down the middle.

Ballo averages 2.8 blocks a game with the 26th highest block percentage in the country. Their combined prowess in the paint has helped them hold opponents to 41.5% from two-point range and an effective field goal percentage of 41.1%. Those marks rank 16th and 11th, respectively.

Indiana has had a slightly lesser perimeter defense with good, not great three-point defense and an average number of steals forced a game at eight.

Louisville has been easily run off the three this season by every opponent, but that will likely have to be how they get the bulk of their points with the Cardinals getting bullied inside in every game they play.

Sloppy side

IU runs a fairly short bench with their starters getting the lion’s share of the offensive production.

Only four players average over eight points, but all four of those players are in double-digits.

Mgbako is the leading scorer for the Hoosiers, with his slashing ability and greatly improved shooting from deep.

The Indiana team as a whole is a better three-point shooting team than a year ago, which was their biggest offensive flaw by far. Mgbako and transfer Myles Rice and Luke Goode are the threats from deep, with Goode yet to get going from deep this season.

Tre Galloway and Rice are the two players who initiate the offense for the Hoosiers, with the two players combining for 9.8 of Indiana’s 18 assists a game. Despite the solid assist numbers, they’re pretty average at assists-to-turnovers ratio at 103rd in the country.

The reason for this less than stellar ratio is that Indiana has had a problem with turnovers this season, it’s been their biggest issue by far. Indiana ranks 221 in turnover percentage on offense and averages 13.3 turnovers a game. These woeful stats are also while Indiana has played no great defenses this season.

Louisville will have the highest ranked defense on Kenpom that the Hoosiers will have faced at 38, and they force turnovers at the fourth highest rate in the country.

Louisville will have to get and stay aggressive to have a chance in this game. They’ll need to make IU uncomfortable on offense, and try their hardest on every possession to not get made uncomfortable on offense themselves. If Louisville can do those two thing, everything else will fall in line.

A win would get the Cards on the right foot in the Battle 4 Atlantis, and get the to 4-1 on the year.

Photo by Alex Woodard