By Harry Barsan

The No. 8 seeded Louisville Cardinals are set to play against the No. 9 seeded Creighton Bluejays in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Both teams finished second in their conference regular seasons and were the runners up in their conference tournaments, highly suggesting that both teams were heavily under-seeded.

Louisville is 1-2 against Creighton all-time, having lost both matches in March Madness. The most recent game was a loss in the first round of the 1999 tournament.

Thing One and Thing Two

The Creighton offense has the nation’s 34th best offensive efficiency rating per Kenpom.

Pace of play is generally considered a huge influence in matchups around March. This may play a huge role in Thursday’s game, as while Louisville averages the 70th highest average pace of play, Creighton’s speed dips all the way down to 192nd.

While it’s a big gap in ranking, Louisville only averages 1.8 more possessions a game and Creighton is really only 0.2 possessions off from the national average.

Still, the Bluejays average 75.2 points a game which is only 3.4 points per game fewer than the Cards. This is in huge part because their two-point accuracy is 60.5%, the second best rate in the nation and best in the entire tournament.

Like Louisville, however, the Bluejays opt for the three-ball at a top 10 rate of 49%. Also like Louisville, they don’t make threes a whole lot, sitting at 33.9%.

Because of this strange dichotomy, Creighton is more than happy to play either inside-out or outside-in depending on what the defense will give them.

The Bluejays centerpiece is their 7-foot-1 center Ryan Kalkbrenner who has been running a clinic in the paint for the past five seasons.

A three-time All-Big East team member, Kalkbrenner leads the team with 19.4 points per game and 8.8 boards, nearly a double-double. Not to mention, he does it with an extremely efficient 65.5 field goal percentage and effective field goal percentage of 67.9%, both lead the Big East.

He’s also a threat from deep, making a third of his 1.7 attempts per game beyond the arc.

But the biggest threat from deep is Steven Ashworth, averaging 16.3 points on 36.9% from three-point range. He takes 8.5 threes a game, but he’s great at not forcing things with 6.8 assists per game.

But he doesn’t just live on there perimeter, as he’s very willing to spread his shot chart around. He also averages 92.6% at the free throw line, the fifth best mark nationally.

Other components of their offense are Jamiya Neal, who’s started all 34 games this season, with 11.5 PPG on 44% shooting and Isaac Traudt, who on less minutes averages 38.8% from three on three shots per game.

But Kalkbrenner and Ashworth are the clear areas of focus for this Cardinals defense. If they get theirs, it might be a short March for the ReVilleists.

Kalkbrenner will likely be doubled every time in the post, so defending the perimeter will be very crucial. If a hot night from three isn’t something the Cards have to worry about then hammering the middle will become much easier.

Stop right there!

Creighton’s defensive approach is, in a nutshell, to never approach the offense.

They rank 361st in steals (3.7) but first in fouls with just 10.9. Of course that isn’t to say they don’t play defense, just that they rely on their spacing and shot prevention in the first place to not worry about intercepting them in the first place.

Creighton’s slower pace of play combined with their hands-off approach to defense means opponents still get off a lot a shots in spite of a slower game. And a lot means the third most per game at 65.6.

However, the Bluejays give up just 45.8% of twos, the 13th best in the nation, while giving up a respectable 32.7% on threes.

As mentioned earlier Creighton’s low-foul approach causes some troubles for teams who use free throws frequently. Opponents average 7.9 makes and 11.1 attempts from the charity stripe. Louisville nearly averages over 15 makes per game, so this may cause from struggles especially from Chucky Hepburn and Reyne Smith.

What makes Creighton especially scary is their rebounding ability.

They grab 37.7 rebounds a game with 27.3 of them coming on the defensive end, which ranks third nationally. Louisville has been hammered on the glass recently, so matching physicality and boxing out against the supreme height of the Bluejays will be crucial to pulling off the victory.

James Scott and Noah Waterman will be asked to play well above their already large statures.

Blame it on the metrics

Unfortunately, Creighton matches up pretty well against this beat-up Louisville squad.

What doesn’t help matters is that the matchup is the very first of the tournament, giving a Cardinals team that desperately needed rest very little.

The biggest thing going for Louisville is that the game is being played in Lexington, which is a de facto home game for the Cards. And Creighton has been night and day at and away from home. At home Creighton holds a record of 15-2, but on the road they’re 6-5 and at neutral sites they’re 3-3.

The “home” crowd will give a big advantage for Louisville, and they have a good shot at surviving and advancing.

Tip-off is at 12:15 p.m. Thursday in Rupp Arena.

Photo by Vinny Porco