Louisville Cardinals @ Notre Dame Fighting Irish (Under) ..

While Louisville is definitely going to want to push the pace here this evening, I believe that a matchup like this will force them to play a bit slower than usual. The Cardinals are a team that likes to score a lot of points. However, against slower playing teams (like Notre Dame,) they tend to play in lower scoring games. Take for example the game @Virginia back on January 4th. UVA hasn't been great this season, but we all know that it plays good defense and not too fast. Well, that game ended with 120 total points.

Notre Dame is very similar to Virginia. The Irish are coming off a double-OT game against Boston College in a game that saw a lot of points. Prior to that game though, they had seen three consecutive games now even reach the 130s. This is a team that slows down basketball games and against good offenses. I believe that ND might struggle to score in this game, but it will slow the pace down enough for them to hold Louisville under their average.

When these two sides have matched up recently, it's been on the lower scoring side of things as well. Last year's games saw 122 & 138 points ("under" was 1-1-0.) Before that, and over the past decade, the "under" is 8-3-2. This matchup tends to stay low scoring and that trend will continue on Sunday.

Score Prediction: 75-63 Notre Dame.