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Tennessee Louisville Odds, Picks, & Predictions
With the first two rounds in the books, we are only a couple days away from the action starting back up. On Thursday one of the most anticipated Sweet 16 matchups is set to get underway in #2 Tennessee vs. #3 Louisville. This should be one of the most entertaining games of the weekend, as both teams will play up tempo and put a lot of points on the board.Louisville is coming into the game after two very impressive wins last weekend. They first took care of #14 Boise St. by 18-points, then #6 Oklahoma by an impressive 30-points. Louisville’s impressive play has many people jumping on the bandwagon, and taking the Cardinals over the Volunteers. The Cardinals have a pretty well balanced offensive attack, as 4 players average over 10 points a game, and 4 others average over 6 points per game. The most important player is F Terrence Williams; he gets the job done in all aspects of the game. He is the teams second leading scorer and rebounder, and he leads the team in assists. They will also need a strong performance from the big man, David Padgett, who comes in as the leading scorer.
Tennessee hasn’t looked nearly as impressive, they struggled more than the score might show in round 1 against #15 American, and they needed overtime to beat #7 Butler. We will say that Butler was much better than a #7 seed, so that win might be a little more impressive than it looks. Tennessee has been great all season, even spending a brief time as the #1 team in the country. Guard Chris Lofton, who comes in leading the team with 15.5 PPG, leads them. The player who is just now starting t get the credit he deserves is sophomore F Tyler Smith; he comes in averaging 13.7 PPG, 6.8 RPG, and 3.5 APG. Smith has proven to a force to reckon with, and has the Vols present and future both looking very good.
When it comes down to it, we really like #3 Louisville and believe that they will have what it takes to take down #2 Tennessee. What made this pick interesting is that the Vols are getting 2.5 points, even though they are the higher seed. We just think that Louisville’s defense will be able to slow down Tennessee’s attack. One other big factor here is that while Tennessee was able to go down and get physical with Butler, they won’t have such an easy time against Louisville’s frontcourt. We believe the game will be won in the paint not on the 3-point line. So while the game will be close, we are taking Louisville to cover the spread. The big trend we like here is Louisville is 18-6 ATS after covering at least 4 out of their last 6 games in the past 2 seasons.
After looking at both teams in their first two games, you would think that this was going to be a game where both teams are scoring near 75-80 points and the over would cover easily. The thing is that both these two teams still play pretty good defense, and fatigue will play a big role as these two teams rarely get matched up with teams that want to run with them. The game I really like to look back on is the Memphis vs. Tennessee game, where everyone thought that game was going to be crazy and see near 190 points. What happened was both teams scored in the 60’s and the total wound up being 128. While there are numerous trends favoring the under, here is one that we liked a lot, Louisville is 41 - 25 going under the total as a favorite over the last 3 seasons.
Final Score - Louisville 71 - Tennessee 66
So head over to Sportsbook.com today and take our advice on these two plays, and win big this weekend. Sportsbook.com has all your betting needs for the NCAA Tournament. Feel free to leave any comments in the comment box.
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