Louisville Cardinals
Record: 29-5
Head Coach: Rick Pitino (13th season)
Season summary: Louisville is one of the hottest teams entering the tournament, having won 12 of its last 13, including the American Athletic Conference tournament championship Saturday. The defending national champs struggled somewhat against ranked teams this year, with all five losses coming against ranked competition. However, their No. 4 seed may be a result of an anti-AAC bias more than anything, as Louisville performed comparably to ACC champion and No. 1 seed Virginia during conference play. The Cardinals return two of their top players from last year’s squad, including leading scorer Russ Smith (18.3 PPG, 4.7 APG) and the 2013 Final Four Most Outstanding Player in sharpshooter Luke Hancock (11.7 PPG). Louisville's defense forces 10.1 steals per game, and the Cardinals are one of only two teams to have both a top-10 offense and defense by Ken Pomeroy’s adjusted statistics. Overall, Louisville is averaging a 21.1-point margin of victory this season and is considered the favorite to win it all by none other than statistician extraordinaire Nate Silver.
How they make a run: Pitino has his team peaking at the right time yet again, and the proven ability of Smith, Hancock and co. overwhelm the inexperienced squads in the Midwest.
How they falter: The defense doesn’t hold up against an opponent with multiple weapons, and bad free throw shooting (65.9% on the year) dooms the Cardinals.
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