By Harry Barsan
The rolling Cardinals will head to Atlanta to take on the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.
Louisville enters the game as heavy favorites with the Yellow Jackets having lost five of their last six contests.
Little buzz
While Tech may have a losing record, they are a very average team by and large.
GT is 169th on Kenpom in offensive efficiency with a rating of 107.1, just a hair above the average of 106.8. Once you get into more specifics, it’s just more average.
Lance Terry is the top option for the Yellow Jackets, leading the team with 15.4 points per game and leading the team in qualified three-point percentage with 39.1%, shooting around six per game. He just recently erupted with 23 points against Florida State before a slighter game against Notre Dame, notching only seven.
Oklahoma-transfer Javian McCollum has been a stellar addition. Having led the Big 12 last season in free throw percentage, McCollum is averaging 88.2% from the line, which is top-50 in Division-1.
He shoots 43.3% from the field on a selective 9.6 attempts per game, despite being second in scoring with 12.8 PPG. He is a very efficient and smart player who the Cards can’t forget about whenever he steps on the court.
The Yellow Jackets have their knock-off version of Chucky Hepburn in the form of their sophomore guard Naithan George. George, who is their third highest scorer, leads the Yellow Jackets with 6.2 assists per game and has scored 10-plus in eight straight games. George also has an assist rate of 34%, which ranks 36th in the country.
While not as keen of an eye for steals as Hepburn, he averages 10.9 PPG and has been known to chuck it from three, shooting around a fourth of team’s total volume from there at a solid rate of 31%.
What severely limits Tech is the fact they they, like Louisville, are dealing with four injuries at the moment. Many of their key players are forced to ride the bench, and the remaining guys are forced to pick up an and all slack.
While this Yellow Jackets team isn’t intimidating, they’re not to taken lightly either. If Louisville maintains their same defensive intensity that they have throughout the current winning streak they should be fine, and possibly even wear out GT past the point of recovery.
De-stingered
Much like their offense, the GT defense is only slightly above average. The difference between the offense and defense is the defense has clear strengths and weaknesses.
The Jackets hold opponents to 46.7% from inside the arc, the 38th best clip in the country. A big part of their success on the inside is Baye Ndongo. He averages a modest 0.7 blocks a game, but he alters far more shots than could ever get recorded on a stat sheet.
The flip side of their strong interior defense is that GT has a bad perimeter defense.
They give up 35.7% from three, the 287th best mark in the country, and they’re in the bottom 75 in percentage of points allowed from deep. For a Louisville team that has really ramped up their perimeter shooting in conference play, it could be a long day if GT doesn’t locate and eliminate shooters. Look for Reyne Smith to have another whale of a game from beyond the arc.
Two other areas of weakness that play right into the Cards’ hands are turnovers and rebounding.
The Yellow Jackets are not good at forcing turnovers, steals or otherwise, and Louisville has turned into a team that is allergic to having double-digit turnovers in a game.
GT is also very unimpressive when it comes to grabbing boards. Ndongo is their leading rebounder with only 7.5 a game, so for a Louisville squad that heavily emphasizes crashing the glass there will be many second- and third-chance opportunities.
Georgia Tech is middle of the pack, and middle of the pack production doesn’t cut it this year in the ACC. And it most certainly shouldn’t against a Louisville squad that looks primed to beat the ‘96 Bulls.
Louisville will look to improve to 17-5 on the year and 10-1 in the ACC. A win would give the Cards 11 wins in a row, the longest streak since the 2014-15 season.
You can see this rampaging Cardinal squad take on the Yellow Jackets of Georgia Tech on Saturday at 3:45 p.m.
Photo Courtesy // Mallory Peak, Louisville Athletics