By Elizabeth Scanland

On Sunday, the Louisville Cardinals will take on the Wake Forest Demon Deacons on the road.

Louisville is heading into the game with three-straight wins with two of those being conference wins, slowly climbing their way up in the ACC standings.

It can’t get uglier than this

Wake Forest is pretty bad, worse than their 7-6 record indicates. They are 0-4 against high-major opponents with no wins against respectable opponents.

The main issue behind this lack of major success come from an offense that only puts up 60.8 points per game.

The Demon Deacons have five players averaging over eight minutes a game, none of them score double-digits. Elise Williams and Rylie Theuerkauf both lead the scoring with 9.7 points per game, and Malaya Cowles is right on their heels with 9.5 a game.

For a team that shares the sugar, there’s nothing sweet about Wake’s shooting. The Deacons are shooting 42.3% from the field and 29.6% from three-point range.

There is not a single shooter on Wake that is intimidating behind the arc, with the best shooters being Aurora Sorbye and Raegyn Conley at 36.4% and 35.3%, respectively.

Jeff Walz loves to build his schemes around eliminating one player’s impact on the game, but he might have trouble picking who he wants to slow down.

A glimmer of hope

Despite offensive struggles, the team’s defense is what stands out, ranking second in the ACC allowing an average of 55.2 points per game.

Averaging 9.6 steals a game, a Louisville team that has struggled all season with turnovers, could face a real test.

However, Louisville tends to excel in steals per game with four players being in the top-20 of steals in the conference. The Cards will likely just have to force more turnovers than they give up, although you would like to see them accept the challenge and hold onto the ball.

Wake also does a great job frustrating opponents, holding them to 36.5% from the field and 27.6% from deep. They anchor the middle of their defense with Cowles standing at 6-foot-3. Cowles doesn’t get a lot of blocks, but points are still hard to come by against this Deacons defense.

Wake is going to slow this game down to a glacial pace, and try to win as ugly a game as possible. Louisville is good at playing the chameleons, but they’ll have to show they can out muscle wannabe bullies.

Louisville is highly favored to win this game and will hopefully be an easy win to extend their win streak and improve to 10-5 and 3-1 in the ACC.

The Cards will tip off at 4 p.m. inside LJVM Coliseum.

Photo Courtesy // Landen Fuller, Louisville Athletics