On Monday night at the Hall of Freedom, the Louisville Cardinals welcome the Fighting Harangodys of Notre Dame in a big time match up of nationally ranked teams. Louisville (11-3, 2-0 Big East) is coming off a huge road win at Villanova this past Saturday and looks to keep that momentum going against a high-powered Notre Dame offensive team. The Fighting Irish are led by Luke Harangody, the 2007-2008 Big East Player of the Year, but is best known here at the Pinkie for looking like a young Norm Peterson. Despite appearing to be highly unathletic, Harangody is averaging over 24 points and 12 rebounds per game, and he went off for 40 points against the Cardinals last year in the Hall of Freedom.

While stopping Harangody appears to be a must, I tend to go in the opposite direction. In situations like this, I prefer to stop everyone else and force Harangody to beat you by himself. Look, Norm is damn good, but he most likely cannot score 70-80 points by himself.

You really can’t afford to double down on Harangody because Mike Brey has surrounded him with such great perimeter shooters.  Kyle McAlarney and Ryan Ayers are both shooting over 45-percent from beyond the arc and Luke Zeller is shooting 35-percent.  As a team they have knocked 138 threes on the season and are shooting 41-percent.  In a loss to UNC in the Maui Championship, McAlarney set a school record by knocking down 10 of 18 three point attempts.   Two games later Ayers knocked down nine of 14 against South Dakota.  So these kids can shoot and if they catch fire they are extremely difficult to beat. 

Brey also has the floor general in Tory Jackson that every coach loves.   The three-year starter has the ability to penetrate defenses, get to the rim, find Harangody or kick to an open shooter on the wing.   He does a little bit of everything for the Irish, as he averages 11.8 points, 5.9 assists, and 4.6 rebounds-per-game.  Play off on him and he can knock down the open three as well.  He is shooting 41-percent from deep, he just doesn’t pull as often as McAlarney, Zeller or Ayers.  Not many do.

The much publicized weakness of this Irish squad is their defense. As a matter of fact, in last year’s contest, Louisville put on an offensive clinic in their 90-85 win over Norm’s crew. This game should be extremely high scoring and entertaining to watch.

As for the Cardinals, Earl Clark is starting to become the player we all knew he could be. In his two Big East contests this year, Clark is averaging 19 points and 10 rebounds. Sam Sam and T-Will have also stepped up their games early in the Big East campaign and quite frankly Edgar Sosa is starting to come around as well. I don’t want to jinx anything, but could Edgar Sosa possibly have turned the corner? We’ll see as the season progresses.

In my opinion, the key to this game is rebounding. Louisville needs to minimize posessions for the Irish and keeping them from getting second and third opportunities for points will be critical. Sam Sam, Earl Clark, and T-Will will need to be dominant on the glass, and the good news for that is they are more than capable of doing just that. I look for Earl to continue to bring it, as well as T-Will to take this game over. The Hall of Freedom crowd should also prove to be a huge advantage for the Cardinals. As usual, I’m taking the Cardinals in this one.

Rolf’s Prophecy – Louisville 84 Norm’s Crew 72