The brand new American Athletic Conference should be pretty competitive in its first season. I see a couple of teams that could finish 11-1, with the favourite Louisville Cardinals reaching that record and possibly being joined by Cincinnati too.
Both Louisville and Michigan have had impressive runs to the title game and overall the Cardinals have not lost since early February Louisville had to come back in their last game using their great pressure defense to come back to win by 4 points.
Louisville is coming off a huge win over Duke in the Elite 8 and they have a huge lift for this game after one of their key bench players Kevin Ware was lost for the season with a terrible injury.
Louisville got over their 3-game losing streak and they have won their last 3 games including beating a ranked Marquette team.
As of early Monday morning Louisville is the 5th ranked team in the nation, but that will change when the new ranking come out since they have lost 3 straight.
Louisville is one of the hottest teams in the country winners of 10 straight, but they have a tough task facing a UCONN team that has won 2 straight and is coming off a great road win over a ranked Notre Dame team. NCAAB odds have Louisville as a 7-point road favorite with a total of 132.
The Louisville Cardinals are set to enter the 2012-13 season as the No. 2 team in the country in both the AP and USA Today preseason polls. The team is stacked with talent, which is why they’re going to be expected to do great things come late in the year.
This rivalry is played every year but rarely twice. Back in December, Louisville’s was a 10 point underdog so all their recent successes have done is earn themselves another point of respect.
Louisville Regular Season: The Cardinals started red hot winning their first 12 games of the season including 5 against eventual tournament teams Ohio, Memphis, Vanderbilt, Western Kentucky and Long Beach State.
After meeting just once since the turn of the century in a 2009 NCAA tournament regional final showdown, the top-seeded Michigan State Spartans will once again meet up with the No. 4 Louisville Cardinals, this time aiming to exact a little revenge on that 1959 88-81 loss, in Thursday’s West Regional semifinals in the Valley of the Sun.
The Big East tournament final is a shocker between a couple of unranked teams in Cincinnati and Louisville.
Syracuse (29-1) has already won the Big East and they have a good shot to get a top seed in the NCAA tournament, but if they lose this home game facing Louisville (22-8) that may be in jeopardy.
They may not have the better overall record but the South Florida Bulls are ahead of Louisville in the Big East standings this season. They are finally standing up for themselves in the conference and this game has a lot at stake, especially as their seems to be something brewing basketball wise in the state of Florida.
Two teams battling it out for 5th spot in the Big East standings will square off as No. 17 Louisville look to continue its roll at a resurgent Cincinnati on Thursday night.
The Syracuse Orange had a pretty good week last week knocking off Georgetown and Connecticut, the latter more easily than expected at home.
While the Louisville Cardinals began their Big East campaign with a shocking loss to the No. 12 Georgetown Hoyas, the Wildcats lit it up in Lexington as they destroyed Lamar for its 43rd straight home victory.
