By Harry Barsan

Louisville will face the Stanford Cardinal on senior night to wrap up a successful ReviVille in year one under Pat Kelsey.

The French connection

Kenpom has this Stanford offense ranked 92nd in the nation and generates 73.7 points per game.

This team runs their offense through their sensational big, Maxime Raynaud.

Raynaud, in his fourth year at Stanford, has really broken out in his final season. He is currently averaging a double-double with 20.2 points and 10.9 rebounds, leading the conference in the latter category and standing at fifth in the nation as well. While he’s good at rebounding on both sides, he is much better on the defensive side ranking sixth in the country.

Raynaud is the go-to scorer by a wide margin for Stanford, getting involved in 29.5% of possessions when he’s on the court and taking 32.2% of shots. These rates respectively rank 67th and 33rd nationally.

With his 7-foot-1 frame, he unsurprisingly produces a lot of points in the paint, yet he also leads the team in attempts and makes from deep while shooting a decent 33.5%.

Their more reliable option from range is Oziyah Sellers, scoring 39% of his three-point shots while averaging 13.5 points per game himself.

Jaylen Blakes makes about as big of a splash with just over 13 PPG himself, and doing some of his damage from the free throw line with 4.4 makes a game.

Stanford is an elite free throw shooting team, with a free throw rate of 79.1%, putting them at first in the ACC and 12th in the nation. However, Stanford is not very good at getting to the line, ranking 270th in free throw attempts to field goal attempts.

Louisville will have a very interesting challenge defending Stanford, and it all stems from Raynaud. The Cards have struggled at times against big, physical centers, especially of late.

At all possible turns, Louisville will need to try and drive him out by the perimeter and force him to beat them behind the arc. James Scott will get the bulk of that assignment, but Noah Waterman and J’Vonne Hadley will be tasked to help as well.

What’s to write about?

Stanford’s Defense is a tad stronger, ranked 86th on Kenpom.

Virtually every statistic outside of defensive rebounding is very average for the Cardinal, and their defensive rebounding is so great almost exclusively because of Raynaud.

Stanford makes up for these average marks by slowing their pace down and limiting possessions. They hold opponents to just under 55 shots per game. In games where opponents shoot 55 or less, they are 11-6.

Like Cal, Stanford gives up very few threes a game (just 18.5). Unlike their intrastate-rivals, however, they give them up at a respectable 34%. However if the Cards shoot like they did on Wednesday, that should be no issue.

Blakes is the only consistent threat Louisville needs to worry about when it comes to stealing the ball with 1.8 steals a game. No one else on the Cardinal eclipses one a game.

One major weakness for Stanford is how often they foul. They allow opponents to score 21.7% of their points from the charity stripe, the 45th highest rate in the country.

If the referees have a loose whistle, Chucky Hepburn will likely feast on the inside and get to the line often.

A win would end Louisville’s regular season at 25-6 on the year and 18-2 in the ACC, but it’s much larger than just a record.

Louisville won a combined 25 games over the past three seasons, so matching that in the regular season alone of Kelsey’s first year would be a miracle. Louisville is also just four wins away from mounting the largest season-to-season turnaround in college basketball history.

And the Cards are still in contention to win the ACC regular season and get the top seed in the ACC tournament. A win against Stanford is the first step.

The regular season finale will tip-off on Saturday at 2 p.m. at the KFC Yum! Center.

Photo by Vinny Porco