Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012
One of the more evenly-matched college basketball games coming up on Saturday is the 9:00 PM ET tilt between the #21 Louisville Cardinals (14-5) and the Pittsburgh Panthers (11-8).
The Panthers may not be in the top-25 or have the accolades of the Cardinals, but that hasn’t stopped the Las Vegas odds makers from putting them up as a 2.5-point home favorite.
The total for Saturday’s matchup sits at 127 and is moving as high as 127.5 at certain sportsbooks.
Louisville is scoring 70.7 points per game this season but they’ve been very average at shooting from inside and from long range.
They’ll be going up against a Pittsburgh defense that hasn’t been particularly good at forcing misses, but they generally slow down teams in an effort to throw off their rhythm.
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Pittsburgh is averaging 71.1 points per game while shooting strongly from all spots on the floor, but they’ll be going up against an excellent Louisville defense that is allowing teams just 36.7% shooting from the field.
One area where the Panthers have a big advantage here is with rebounding, and the Cardinals will have to put extra effort if they want to grab contested boards.
3 of the last 4 head-to-head meetings between these teams have gone into overtime, and the home team has won outright in 3 straight after losing in all of the previous 4 matchups.
Louisville has won outright in 3 of the last 5 games, while the over has been a winner in 3 of those contests.
The Cardinals have dropped 5 of their last 7 games and have covered the point spread in just 3 of their last 10 overall.
Pittsburgh is currently on a 7-game losing streak but has managed to cover the odds in their last 2 while going under the total in 6 of 7.
Tags: betting, louisville cardinals, money line, odds, over under, pick, pittsburgh panthers, point spread, preview
