Dave Malinsky
4* #823 LOUISVILLE over CONNECTICUT
We use the phrase “Tough Out” often over the course of most college basketball seasons, focusing on road underdogs that bring the particular set of elements that makes it very hard to put them out of a game. And rarely do we get to back a team with the talent, athleticism and tenacity of Louisville, and a coach like Rick Pitino, in such a setting. In this case we in fact get the better team as the underdog, and that makes this impossible to pass up.Yes, we cashed an easy 6* ticket behind Connecticut over West Virginia on Monday, but go back to that analysis and you will see how much talked about the particular matchups at hand. The Mountaineers are vulnerable to teams with good guards that can break a defense down off the dribble, and Kemba Walker and Jerome Dyson exploded for over half of the UConn points (38 of 73). But now the setting changes drastically. Walker and Dyson were held to 11-31 from the field with seven turnovers in that earlier 82-69 loss at Louisville, and they face a much more difficult time getting into rhythm in this matchup. The Cardinals will extend their defense and pressure that duo, instead of sitting back and allowing them to find a rhythm, and the Huskies have been nothing special at all against that kind of defensive pressure this season.Meanwhile here is what you get with a program like Louisville, and a coach like Pitino, in this setting – how about a 9-1 ATS run as February road underdogs in Big East play the last four seasons? And the “tough out” elements are there again this time around. The Cardinals have won outright on the league road at Syracuse, Providence and DePaul, but get under-valued because of three bitter point-blank defeats, that O.T. failure at Pittsburgh, and three-point losses at West Virginia and Seton Hall when they did not get the best of the late officiating. Only once in seven Big East trips have they been beaten by more than this pointspread. They bring the tools to be in this one to the final possession, and the over-reaction by the markets on the inside-out results for each of these teams earlier in the week (Louisville losing outright as a favorite; UConn winning outright as an underdog) gets us in play.