Louisville Cardinals (3-1) vs. Indiana Hoosiers (4-0)

Battle 4 Atlantis Quarterfinals

Playing time: Midday

Location: Imperial Arena: Paradise Island, Bahamas

TV: ESPN

Announcer: Beth Mowins (play-by-play) and Debbie Antonelli (analyst)

Favorite: Indiana by 2.5

Series: Indiana leads 12-9

Last meeting: Indiana won 74-66 in the Empire Classic third-place game in Brooklyn on November 20, 2023

Series history:

Expected starting lineups:

Louisville

• G Chucky Hepburn (6-2, 190, Sr.)
• G J’Vonne Hadley (6-6, 215, 5th)
• G/F Terrence Edwards Jr. (6-6, 205, 5th)
• F Noah Waterman (6-11, 230, 6th)
• C James Scott (6-11, 220, Sun.)

Indiana

• G Myles Rice (6-3, 185, R-So.)
• G Kanaan Carlyle (6-3, 182, Sun.)
• F Mackenzie Mgbako (6-9, 222, Sun.)
• F Malik Reneau (6-9, 232, Jr.)
• C Oumar Ballo (7-0, 265, R-Sr.)

Statistics:

Relevant videos:

Indiana’s season so far:

About Indiana:

It’s the fourth year of the Mike Woodson era in Bloomington and it feels like a pivotal season when it comes to whether the IU alum is the right man to lead the Hoosiers back to what they were for their right to hold space at the top of the college basketball food chain.

Expectations for the “make” part of this equation are extremely high, thanks to the return of a handful of the most productive players from last season’s disappointing squad and the addition of some of the highest-rated players in the transfer portal.

The 14th-ranked Hoosiers are off to a 4-0 start but looked disjointed at various points against a quartet of teams that didn’t pose much of a challenge.

So far, IU has been led by a former recruit from Louisville Mackenzie Mgbakowho got off to a brilliant start after a rather disappointing season as a freshman. The versatile 6-foot-10 forward is averaging 18.8 ppg and scored a career-high 31 in the team’s season-opening win over SIU Edwardsville. Mgbako has been the team’s leading three-point shooter (53.3 percent) so far this season was also a monster on offense. Expect J’Vonne Hadley to be the man tasked with slowing down the super-talented sophomore and preventing him from giving himself and others a second chance.

Washington State transfer guard Myles Rice was hired to direct the show and has done so successfully so far. He has scored 20 or more points and totaled 18 assists in each of IU’s last two games. Rice, like a handful of players on this IU team, has struggled a bit with turnovers this season (3.3 per game), prompting Woodson to pair him up more often Trey Galloway Recently, multiple distributors have been on site at the same time, allowing Rice to focus more on scoring than running the show. Galloway is less dangerous when it comes to scoring, but he leads the team in assists with 5.3 per game.

Big man transfer from Arizona Omar Ballo was Woodson’s biggest offseason addition, both figuratively and literally. The 7-foot senior has recorded 34 double-doubles in his career and is the elite rim protector and back-to-the-basket scorer that Louisville is so clearly missing this season. He pairs with 6’9 juniors Malik Reneau (13.5 ppg) to create arguably the toughest frontcourt Louisville has faced this season.

Ballo is currently hitting a career minutes average, and with Indiana scheduled to play three games in three days, it will be interesting to see if Woodson looks to move some lineups around with Reneau manning the five spots while Ballo gets an extended break .

Louisville and Indiana are the opposites you can’t wait to see in this tournament. Case in point: IU has shot the three well this season, but they haven’t shot often. While they hit the outside shot at a rate of 35.7 percent, only 30.4 percent of their field goal attempts come from beyond the arc. That’s 343rd among 364 DI teams. While Louisville only shoots 29.4 percent of its three-point shots, it shoots a higher percentage of its shots from distance than all but one of the other teams in the country.

Indiana has a clear advantage when it comes to size and physicality. If the Hoosiers do it accordingly, they should be able to consistently score at the rim without much resistance from a Louisville team that has struggled with interior defense against MUCH smaller opponents.

U of L should and probably will be able to speed up the game. Indiana is currently playing at a faster pace (85th in pace) than ever before under Woodson. A possession game with a high number of ball losses and switching opportunities should Open the door to a surprise in Louisville.

There are three main reasons for optimism here:

1) Indiana struggles with turnovers and Louisville thrives on passing teams. The Cardinals arrive in the Bahamas ranked fourth nationally in opponents’ turnover rate and immediately face a team that gives the ball away on 18.9 percent of its offensive possessions. Chucky Hepurn is fourth nationally in steals per game and could make life hell for the Hoosier guards.

2) Indiana wasn’t particularly good on defense. Neither does Louisville, but that’s a cause for concern on the other end of the floor. Pat Kelsey loves to crush five players on the offensive glass, and in this game that philosophy applies should This leads to a number of second chance opportunities.

3) Louisville should have an open appearance from the outside. Challenging IU on the perimeter probably won’t end well for most of the guys on U of L’s roster. Luckily, the Hoosiers had pretty consistent perimeter defense issues in the first few weeks of the season. In the halfcourt, U of L’s versatile forwards and bigs should be able to pull Indiana’s interior defenders out of their comfort zone, which should lead to open looks from the outside. I know this is hard for a lot of people to accept, but this is a game where if the cards look good 45 out of three, you have to try all 45 of them.

Everyone says it with me: I have to make recordings.

An important note here is that this game is just as important for Indiana as it is for Louisville. While the Cardinals need to get quality wins (and position themselves to compete against quality opponents for the remainder of the tournament) due to the ACC’s lack of success so far this season, the Hoosiers need to do so because they lack a pop-conference schedule. IU has already played an average game at South Carolina, but now has no more scheduled non-con games against teams ranked in the top 80 on KenPom (outside of Louisville).

Indiana fans have been frustrated at times this season with their team’s lack of effort and focus. You wouldn’t think something like this would be a problem in a game of this magnitude. If so, Louisville needs to take advantage. The Cardinals are probably no more inherently talented than this Hoosier team, but outscoring them would go a long way toward securing the most significant win of the young Kelsey era so far.

Notable:

—Louisville has had 31 regular-season tournament championships in its history. The Cardinals have lost five straight regular-season tournament games after going 0-3 at the 2022 Maui Invitational and 0-2 at last year’s Empire Classic.

—Louisville has a 6-2 record in Battle 4 Atlantis and is 4-2 in tournament play in the Bahamas. The Cardinals made it to the championship game in their two previous appearances: U of L lost to Duke in the 2012 title game and lost to Baylor in the 2016 title game.

–Louisville enters the Battle 4 Atlantis ranking sixth nationally in three-point attempts per game (34.0), seventh in turnovers forced per game (19.0) and 14th in turnover margin (6.8).

– Louisville has 11 players who were on teams that played in the 2024 NCAA Tournament. The squad has made a total of 14 NCAA Division I Tournament appearances at its previous schools and has played in 20 NCAA Tournament games over the course of its career.

–Louisville has a 254-80 record against non-conference opponents over the last 23 seasons (including postseason).

—Indiana does not have a mascot. Isn’t that strange? Have you ever thought about it?

—Louisville is 2-4 in games against Indiana played at neutral sites.

– As a head coach, Pat Kelsey is 0-13 against opponents ranked in the AP Top 25 poll. He is 0-1 in such games at Louisville. Indiana is currently ranked 14th in the poll.

– The winner of the Battle 4 Atlantis has won the NCAA Championship twice: the Villanova Wildcats in 2017-18 and the Virginia Cavaliers in 2018-19.

—Louisville has a 221-15 record over the last 21 seasons and is 2-0 this season when scoring 80 points or more.

– Louisville has a 14-0 record over the last 10 seasons when limiting opponents to no more than a three-point field goal.

– Since 2004, Louisville is 130-0 when leading by more than 10 points at halftime.

–Louisville has a 115-0 all-time record when scoring 100 or more points in non-overtime games.

—Louisville has won 163 consecutive games while holding an opponent under 50 points.

Ken Pomeroy Prediction: Indiana 77, Louisville 73