Frank Lorenzo
(12) Louisville Cardinals (-4, 119.5) at Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
An interesting ACC matchup on Monday night has the Louisville Cardinals (21-6, 9-5 ACC) taking on the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (12-15, 3-12 ACC) at 7:00 p.m. Eastern at the McCamish Pavilion in Atlanta, Georgia.
Louisville comes in on the heels of a 55-53 win over the Miami Hurricanes on Saturday, snapping a two-game losing skid. Twenty-one points and 14 rebounds from Montrezl Harrell helped the Cardinals get back on their feet. The Cardinals would have found themselves on a three-game losing streak if Miami’s Angel Rodriguez had managed to connect on a three-pointer late in the game.
“I thought it was a great shot,” Miami coach Jim Larranaga said. “He got it right in rhythm, right in transition, and he hits that shot a lot.”
Tonight – and, indeed, for the rest of the season – Louisville will need to find ways to score without guard Chris Jones. The junior, who was third on the team with 13.7 PPG, was recently dismissed from the squad for non-basketball reasons.
The Cardinals are 9-5 inside the ACC, but just 10-15-1 against the spread this season.
Georgia Tech, on the other hand, was obliterated by the North Carolina Tar Heel on Saturday, losing 89-60. It was the Yellow Jackets third loss in their last four games and 12th in the last 15.
“We got beat by a superior team today, there’s no question about it, that played at a really high level,” Georgia Tech coach Brian Gregory said. “And I’m OK with that, as long as you compete. And we had some guys that did and unfortunately we didn’t have everybody. And we need everybody.”
The Yellow Jackets have just three ACC wins on the year, but they have all come in the last seven games, and two have come at home. Their most recent W was a 63-52 triumph over a decent Clemson squad on Feb. 16.
Louisville opened as six-point favorites, but the line has dropped to four. Both teams boast excellent defenses and the O/U is at a low 119.5.
(Photo credit: Bradjward (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)
