The Cards are looking to do something they’ve never done Saturday afternoon in Charlottesville.
Photo by Ryan M. Kelly/Getty Images
Louisville Cardinals (9-5, 2-1) at Virginia Cavaliers (8-5, 1-1)
Game Time: 4 p.m.
Location: John Paul Jones Arena: Charlottesville, Va.
Television: ACC Network
Announcers: Patrick O’Keefe (play-by-play) and Terrence Oglesby (analysis)
Officials: Pat Driscoll, John Gaffney, Matt Potter
Favorite: Louisville by 3.5
Series: Virginia leads, 24-5
Last Meeting: Virginia won 69-52 on Jan. 27, 2024 in Louisville
About Virginia:
Perhaps no program in college basketball has had a more tumultuous last four months than Virginia.
On Oct. 18, national championship winning head coach Tony Bennett abruptly stepped away from the program after 15 seasons as the face of Cavalier hoops. Ron Sanchez, who had previously been the head coach at Charlotte, was immediately elevated to the position of interim head coach. He inherited a team that was the preseason pick to finish fifth in the ACC, but those expectations may have been overly optimistic given the uneven roster that Bennett had assembled.
Like Louisville, Virginia has already been put through the ringer by its early season schedule. Four of UVA’s five losses have come against teams currently ranked in the AP top 25 poll. The other, a 64-62 home loss to Memphis State, came against a team that currently projects as an NCAA tournament squad.
UVA has a nice win over Villanova and a solid comeback in its most recent outing against NC State, but also like the Cardinals, they’ve been pushed more than they should have been in more than one of their ball games.
Stylistically, Virginia isn’t going to look much different under Sanchez than they did under Bennett. The pack line defense is still the team’s drug of choice, and they’re still playing at the second slowest pace in all of Division-I.
The biggest difference, at least so far, between these Cavaliers and the ones that have dominated Louisville for the last decade is their lack of consistency on the offensive end.
Virginia enters the weekend ranked just 179th in the country in adjusted offensive efficiency. They turn the ball over far more than we’re used to seeing, and lack the dynamic playmakers necessary to make opposing defenses uncomfortable. That said, they do shoot the three at a 38.5 percent clip, good for 25th-best in the sport.
Junior guard Isaac McKneely is the team’s most consistent performer on offense. McKneely torched Louisville in Charlottesville last season, burying four three-pointers on his way to a game-high 18 points. McKneely, like most players on UVA’s team, struggles with heavy ball pressure. He’s not a significant threat in one-on-one situations, but U of L’s defenders have to be aware of where he is on the floor at all times once UVA gets into its motion offense. He currently ranks second in the ACC in three-point percentage (44.7%) and three-pointers made per game (2.92).
Speaking of, expect Sanchez to lean heavy on motion-based actions throughout this game to try and get outside looks for guys like McKneely, Elijah Saunders and Jacob Cofie. As mentioned, Virginia struggles mightily with ball pressure and that’s the name of the game defensively for the Cards. Limiting the amount of time Andrew Rohde and Dai Dai Ames are dribbling with Chucky Hepburn and Terrence Edwards in their jerseys will be key for UVA’s efforts to force live ball turnovers and limit Louisville’s transition opportunities.
Defensively, we know what Virginia is going to do. They don’t do it as well as they did during the peak of the Bennett era, but they still do it well.
I think a big key in this game for Louisville is to not pass up a good shot in favor of taking a worse shot a handful of seconds later. UVA will over help to cut off Hepburn and Edwards when they drive to the basket, which will create outside looks for guys like Waterman, Hadley, etc. If those guys get a clear look at the bucket, they need to pull the trigger without hesitation. Too often, we’ve had our slumping shooters pump faking against a non-existent defender, only to let the defense recover and force us into taking a lower percentage shot at the end of the shot clock. That’s what Virginia lives for.
Gotta take the open shot. Gotta make the open shot.
Notable:
—Virginia one of only two ACC opponents that Louisville has not defeated on the road since joining the conference in 2014-15. Clemson is the other.
—The Cardinals are 0-9 in games against the Cavaliers inside John Paul Jones Arena, and 1-11 against Virginia in Charlottesville all-time, with their lone win coming on Feb. 17, 1990.
—U of L is 2-19 against Virginia since joining the ACC. The Cardinals have lost 18 of their last 19 games against the Cavaliers.
—Virginia is 253-57 (.816), including a 7-1 mark in 2024-25, in 19 seasons at John Paul Jones Arena.
—Louisville is 1-1 in true road games this season, and 3-2 overall in games played away from home.
—Louisville’s five losses have all come to teams now ranked in the AP Top 25: No. 1 Tennessee, No. 4 Duke, No. 10 Kentucky, No. 12 Oklahoma and No. 24 Ole Miss. Those teams are a combined 59-6.
—Four of Virginia’s five losses have come against teams currently ranked in the AP top 25 poll.
—Louisville redshirt center Aly Khalifa is up against his former head coach for a second time this season. Virginia’s Ron Sanchez coached Khalifa at Charlotte for two seasons before he played for current Kentucky head coach Mark Pope at BYU.
—This will be Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey’s first game against Virginia.
—Virginia has an ACC-leading 97 wins in league home games over the past 11 seasons. Duke is second at 95.
—Isaac McKneely is currently Virginia’s all-time three-point percentage leader at 42.8 percent. McKneely has made 170 of 397 career three-pointers, including 81 last season, which ranks ninth on UVA’s single-season list.
—Louisville is 14-0 over the past 10 seasons when limiting opponents to no more than one three-point field goal.
—Since 2004, Louisville is 130-0 when leading by more than 10 points at halftime.
—Louisville is 115-0 all-time when scoring 100 or more points in non-overtime games.
—Louisville has won 163 consecutive games when holding an opponent under 50 points.
Ken Pomeroy Prediction: Louisville 66, Virginia 64
