By Harry Barsan

The Louisville Cardinals will take on the Syracuse Orange in Louisville’s seventh conference game of the year.

While Syracuse has won two-straight conference games, Louisville has won six-straight in total and are surging at second place in the conference standings.

What a year can do…

After a solid year last season, finishing fifth in the ACC, former Syracuse point guard and second-year head coach Adrian Autry has struggled to lead his squad to that same echelon of success.

After averaging 13.3 points per game last season, junior point guard JJ Starling is now putting up 19.8 per game.  After missing several games due to injury, he has been playing very well since his return, scoring 20-plus in two of his three games back.

Five-star freshman Donnie Freeman has been everything he’s been expected to be so far in his debut season. He’s got a solid mid-range and can be explosive in the paint, while averaging 13 points and leading the team with 7.9 rebounds.

The Orange get a lot of utility out of the Hofstra transfer Jaquan Carlos, who is second in average minutes. He’s leading the team in steals per game (one) and assists per game (4.3), while putting up unfavorable shooting numbers.

Syracuse has pretty poor shooting across the board, as they rank 238th in free throw percentage and a whopping 331st in three-point percentage, with only one player averaging better than 35% from deep. 

While shooting in high volumes even with under average efficiency works for Louisville most of the time, the Orange collect far fewer rebounds than Louisville does, limiting the amount of damage they can do with second-chance points.

Where Syracuse has thrived offensively is slashing toward the basket. They shoot a respectable 53.3% from two-point range and get to the line a fair amount, as well. With Starling back in the rotation, Syracuse will be a much more effective offensive team than their numbers will suggest.

Louisville will probably ask Chucky Hepburn and Terrence Edwards Jr. to tag-team the assignment of guarding Starling, with J’Vonne Hadley getting the responsibility of banging down low with Freeman. It’s a recipe that’s worked recently in the season, and we’ll see if it can work again.

Somehow they’re not bad

Syracuse has a barely average defense, giving up 77.6 points a game and holding the 145th ranked defensive efficiency score. While their defense is ok, they have some glaring holes.

Syracuse rarely ever collect steals or blocks shots, and they allow about a third of threes and half of opponents’ twos to go in.

The Orange are also not a very good team at running opponents off the three-point line, so Louisville will likely get several open looks from behind the arc. Louisville has gotten many open looks in just about every game they’ve played this season, it’s just a matter of whether the shots are falling or not.

The best part of their defense is actually their rebounding. Eddie Lampkin actually ties Freeman at 7.9 boards a game, but Freeman is the 12th best defensive rebounder in the country according to Kenpom. The Cards have made controlling the glass a part of their identity, and that identity will get a serious test Tuesday.

The Cards can almost glide to victory so long as Syracuse can keep shooting themselves in the foot, as they seem to do so far.

The Cards will look to catch another win to improve to 13-5 on the season and 6-1 in the ACC as they head to upstate New York.

The two will tip-off on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Photo Courtesy // Mallory Peak, Louisville Athletics