Hell in the Hall – Louisville Sports Blog

“We played well tonight for an opening game but I thought we played better in the Garden and against Georgetown. I think we guarded the three well and did a lot of good things in the interior. And we did a good job of moving the basketball.”

Rick Pitino

*************************************************************************

Well, that was a pleasant change from the WWF smackdowns we’ve been playing in lately in the Big East.

I was hoping the matador defense that Boise plays would allow us to have an Ole! shooting night –and it certainly did. We shot over 50% from everywhere in both halves.

We flat out-shot the “shooters.”

We knocked down the wide-open 3′s in this game–unlike in the last two games. This may be the spark of confidence our outside shooters need. It would eliminate our biggest weakness.

Yeah, we were sloppy with turnovers and our free throw shooting continued to be a notch below pathetic. And, yeah, we let a smaller team slightly out-rebound us.

But, this game was definitely a good opening round.

*****************************************************************

Now for the expected match-up with #6 seed Oklahoma.  Scout.com OKLA: “This is Oklahoma’s 25th NCAA Tournament appearance and 12th in 14 years. The Sooners are back in the NCAA Tournament after seeing their nation’s-longest 25-year postseason streak (20 NCAAs, five NITs) come to an end last year.

Prognosticators around the country had Oklahoma pegged for a No. 8 seed or – at best – a No. 7 seed as the NCAA Tournament selections approached. Imagine their surprise when the brackets were released and the Sooners were a No. 6 seed in the East Region.

In fact, it surprised several of the Sooners, including head coach Jeff Capel.

“I wasn’t really paying attention, I was writing on my bracket,” Capel said. “We are really happy, really excited and really anxious to get going.”

The Sooners shoot around 44% from the field, 68% from the foul line. Defense and a good inside game are their strengths. Blake Griffin is their main man, averaging 16 points and 10 boards per game.

They are shaky in their outside shooting and in turnovers.

This game will definitely be a grinder. This from a Sooner blogger:

“The bottom line with us is we are dang tough when our guards are hitting 3′s. But they are very inconsistent. Most teams double and triple the post daring them to shoot.We play very good D and just aren’t a fun team to play. You will probably feel like you are the better team as you watch the game but the score will be close or we may even lead most of the game. Unless you guys come out and put on a show I like our chances to keep it competitive. We’ve played a tough schedule and have played the elite teams and players in the country– 5 of our losses came to KU, Memphis, and Texas 3 times.”

Ok, Okie.
This is a team we SHOULD beat–by 8-10. But we must again hit our outside shots. In fact, both teams will pack the D in, and force the issue from the outside.The Sooners guard the 3 well. We will also have an edge in size and depth–as usual–which we must take advantage of.

Below is a table of the comparative stats on the two teams.

Louisville -vs- Oklahoma head to head stats

---

http://msn.foxsports.com/cbk/h…mp;statsId2=444Our Head-to-Head feature is based on season stats. Check marks were given to the team with a higher ranking for that particular category.

Louisville Key Team Stats Oklahoma 71.9 Points scored 68.4 61.3 Points allowed 63.4 .453 FG% own .442 .383 FG% opposition .406 .342 3PT% own .348 .310 3PT% opposition .319 374 Offensive Rebounds 375 834 Defensive Rebounds 812 1285 Total Rebounds 1266 1.1 Assist/Turnover Ratio 1.0 18.2 Fouls Per Game 16.9

Finally, poster HarveyGlass at the Cardinal Empire blog, found this shiny nugget: The keys to Sports Illustrated’sVault of great sports pics and mag covers from over the decades–including some wonderful U of L stuff! http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/