StraitCards Previews: Louisville Cardinals (17-5, 5-4) vs. Rutgers Scarlet Knights (12-11, 4-6)

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Date – Saturday, February 4, 2012
Location – KFC Yum! Center (22,000), Louisville, Ky.
Time – 4:04 p.m. ET
Television – Big East Network (WHAS-TV in Louisville), Jason Benetti (pbp), Paul Biancardi (color)
Radio – WKRD (790 AM), SIRIUS/XM Ch. 91, Paul Rogers (pbp), Doug Ormay (color)
Series – 9-1 Louisville (last: U of L 55, RU 37, 2/22/11 at Rutgers)
Officials – Ed Corbett, Gary Prager, Evon Burroughs

The Cards return home after a week layoff to face their second strait opponent from the Garden State, the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. It was a tale of two halves for the Cardinals against Seton Hall in Newark last Saturday night. The Cards raced out to a 36-21 halftime lead as the Pirates were having trouble getting baskets. In the second half however, Seton Hall slowly climbed back in and frustrated the Cards with a full-court press. The Hall held U of L to only 15 field goal attempts in the final 20 minutes while forcing 15 turnovers. Rick Pitino’s boys still managed to hold on for the nine-point win.

Enter Rutgers. Mike Price’s squad is only a game over .500 at 12-11, but their resume boasts wins over Florida and Connecticut. One thing these two teams have in common that is not worth boasting about is their losses at Providence, the Friars’ only two conference wins in 10 games. RU has only beaten U of L once in program history, that being in Piscataway at the RAC in the Cards’ introductory Big East campaign of 2005-06.

Points will likely be tough to come by for the Knights U of L’s fourth ranked field goal percentage defense inside the KFC Yum! Center. Much like the Cards teams of recent seasons, the scoring is spread out among quite a few players on the roster. A pair of freshman guards is atop Rutgers stat sheet in scoring. Eli Carter averages 13.3 PPG and has nailed 37 treys on the season. Myles Mack averages 10.6 PPG and has dropped in 33 threes. Junior forward Dane Miller leads the Knights with 6.3 RPG and 1.9 BPG (fourth in the Big East). Rutgers’ roster includes seven total freshmen that made up one of the top ten signing classes of 2011.

Eli Carter doesn't rock the sleeve nearly as well as anyone in U of L history. Maybe one day.

February has typically been Rick Pitino and the Cards’ time to shine. The Cards are 29-6 in the month since the 2006-07 season. Throughout history, Pitino has stressed the importance of winning home conference games, and with this team currently trying to move its way into the upper third of the standings, this one is no different. Kyle Kuric should be close to 100 percent and ready to bring more of what we saw when he came off the bench against Pittsburgh. Gorgui Dieng and Chane Behanan should be ready to have big games against a Rutgers front court that doesn’t have a player over 6’9”. Peyton Siva will be guarded by freshmen all game, so look for him to utilize his experience (and hopefully that midrange jumper).

The Cards need to pick up this game and the Big Monday contest with a struggling UConn team to move to 7-4 in the Big East before the daunting task of traveling to Morgantown to face West Virginia and Big East leading scorer Kevin Jones. This team has had its “growing pains” this season, but the time to make the big move is approaching.