WSU VS. LOUISVILLE PREDICTIONS AND PREGAME DISCUSSIONS

[The Mad Hatter]

I'm not encouraged. You gotta know that Lousivillle is going to dedicate the rest of the season to Ware. The last thing you want in a game like this is for your opponent to have any unusual motivation.

Maybe, or maybe the Ware situation is emotionally draining for them (not that I'm rooting for that - I don't want any advantage out of such a horrible injury).

For a team that is the favorite to win the whole thing and overall number 1 seed, they shouldn't need extra motivation to win, so while it might drive them to new heights, if I was a UL fan I would be more worried about it being a disruption.

[SubGod22]

We can play any style at any tempo. We have some great perimeter defenders that can take care of business and make life hell for the L'ville guards. 3G and company has plenty of time to prepare a plan of attack. We're in it to win it.

Shox - 81

Birdies - 74

[GoShockers89]

Over the last 30 years:

We are 6-0 when we score at least 70 points in the NCAA Tournament

We are 0-5 when we score 62 or fewer points in the NCAA Tournament




I think those trends will hold true on Saturday. The 63-69 point range is anyone's guess, though. Here's hoping we can solve that Louisville D.

[BostonWu]

Here's what I like:

1) Our guards are vastly underrated. While I don't know how Malcom will shoot the ball (hope he continues to stroke it) I have a strong gut feeling he will handle the pressure. He's simply a guy that relishes the chance to play against the best. All he's going to here this week is "Siva this Siva that" which will bring out his best.

2) Cards are not a strong rebounding team.

3) Suspect perimeter shooting.

4) I think they'll be taking us lightly looking ahead to the NCG.

[1972Shocker]

We will need to play one of our best games of the year for pretty much a full 40 minutes. I just don't think we can beat Louisville playing on 25-30 minutes of good basketball. We don't have to be perfect but we need to be consistently solid throughout the entire game.

It will be interesting to see how we attack the press, Will we just be content with getting into the front courts and setting up the half-court offense or will we see if we can't aggressively attack the press and try to score before L-ville can set up their half-court defense.

In any case we need to value every possession we have in this game.

I don't blame the pundits for picking L-ville to win, that's probably the smart pick. To pull off the upset the Shocks will need as much MTXE as they can muster and they need to play ultimate team basketball so that our whole becomes greater than the sum of our parts.

Go Shocks! The opportunity of a lifetime awaits.

[GoShockers89]

We've sort of flirted with foul trouble disaster this tournament. I think it is absolutely imperative that Hall, Cle and Mal all play SMART defense Saturday so that we can get 30+ minutes from each of them. No silly frustration fouls that require a 5-6 minute trip to the bench to avoid picking up a 3rd foul before halftime, etc. Louisville's penetration will demand some hard fouls to prevent easy layups and I'm cool with that. What I'm not cool with are the silly ones that will require long appearances from the end of our bench.

As others have said, we don't have to play perfect to win this game. But we have to play 40 minutes of GOOD basketball, physically and mentally. I do think we are peaking like no other Shocker team in history AT JUST THE RIGHT TIME, so the opportunity is there. We just have to break through the glass ceiling and seize it.

[Rlh04d]

I've said this a number of times throughout this tournament:

I'm not worried about a team that's not going to play zone the whole time against us.

Granted, I'm slightly concerned because Louisville will play zone at times. Their press I know we can beat. The zone ... I hope having Baker back gives us a new dimension at breaking the zone.

This is going to be a hell of a Final Four. Louisville is probably the best overall team in the country. Syracuse's zone defense is lights out. Michigan's offense is incredible, and has absolutely blown up great Florida and VCU defenses. I hate this whole garbage narrative that's followed this season about how there's no great teams. There are a lot of great teams. I've enjoyed this year IMMENSELY more than last year's Kentucky dominance. Why the hell do we need one dominant team to make the reporters happy? There have been so many good teams throughout this year and so much good basketball. What a great year it's been, not just for the Shockers, but college basketball as a whole.

I'd love to see how Michigan's offense does against our defense.

[all valley]

I'm not encouraged. You gotta know that Lousivillle is going to dedicate the rest of the season to Ware. The last thing you want in a game like this is for your opponent to have any unusual motivation.

+1

[I_Vector_Wu]

A) They, like their BCS brethren, will take us lightly, pishaw, a lowly 9 seed (ala Mortimer and Randolph Duke)
B) I think the Ware injury, honestly will be a distraction for them, taking time and focus away from game preparation
C) How many games have we been told to be afraid of our opponents pedigree and conference. "The emperor has no clothes"
D) Yes Luville is a very good team, but they aren't perfect. We like to exploit imperfections in overly confident teams.
E) They can talk all they want about winning one for the Gipper (Ware), but they still have to actually go out and execute.
F) I should probably stop here and go to bed now.
G) I'M STILL ANGRY..............!

[WillieJeffJeffries]

Its not Siva I'm worried about, #2 (Smith I think) is about as quick of a guard there is. WSU is really going to have to clog the lane and take their chances with L'Ville's suspect 3 pt shooting. It can be done.

Here's what I like:

1) Our guards are vastly underrated. While I don't know how Malcom will shoot the ball (hope he continues to stroke it) I have a strong gut feeling he will handle the pressure. He's simply a guy that relishes the chance to play against the best. All he's going to here this week is "Siva this Siva that" which will bring out his best.

2) Cards are not a strong rebounding team.

3) Suspect perimeter shooting.

4) I think they'll be taking us lightly looking ahead to the NCG.

[cardinalfan123]

Hey guys, Louisville fan here. Just thought I'd drop by and congratulate you guys on making the Final Four and take part in the discussion to give some info on our team.

Louisville as you already know uses a physical full court press for 40 sraight minutes. It alternates between a 2-1-2 zone and man to man. The purpose is to create havoc and force the opposing team to make turnovers and make them hurry and play faster than they're used to. One second a player might be dribbling up the court and the next he's swarmed by our guards and has to burn a timeout or turn it over. Every team that has tried to run with us has lost. We go 8-10 deep and anybody coming in off the bench can play defense as well as the guy coming out. We simply don't get tired. I see you guys played VCU earlier in the year. A lot of people compare their defense to ours but in reality nobody has a defense like ours. Your players will be shellshocked for the first 5-8 minutes.

All of our guards are short and lightning quick. Russ Smith is our leading scorer and can draw contact when driving in the paint or can step out and drill a three pointer with two guys in his face. Siva is crafty and creates scoring opportunities for our players by driving and dishing to on open guy when the defense collapses. Our small forward is Blackshear who struggles at times but has a beautiful long range jumper, with Hancock coming off the bench who can also hit the 3 ball. Behanan is the power forward and is a bit undersized for the position but can rebound well. His replacement is the freshman Montrezl Harrell who is a monster on the glass and scored 20 against Syracuse in the BET title game. Gorgui Dieng is the center and he's come a long long way since he first arrived. He used to be primarily a defender but can now rebound and score well along with blocking everything being shot in his general vicinity, not to mention he's developed a mid range game. He averages just under a double double in points and rebounds.

Pitino is tireless when it comes to game preparation and with almost a week he'll have an awesome gameplan by Saturday. I can pretty much guarantee you he's studying game film right now. Colorado State was the best rebounding team in the country and we destroyed them on the boards. Duke had one of the highest scoring teams in the country and we held them to 15 points below their season average. A lot of opposing fans think our defense is nothing but hacking that doesn't get called but they're dead wrong. Pitino's defense is so unique that it's virtually impossible for opposing coaches to simulate it in practice so opposing teams have no idea what they're truly up against until the game starts. Our players know how to be physical and not draw a foul. In the half court set we use a matchup 2-3 zone but with about 10 seconds left on the shot clock it switches to a man to man. The interesting thing here is that it doesn't always switch with exactly 10 seconds left, and all the players know exactly when to switch at the same time, and they all know exactly who they're supposed to cover when it switches.

Our only real weaknesses are we sometimes struggle to score in half court sets and we tend to give up 3's too easily. If the game is called tight our guys rack up fouls pretty quickly. With Ware out it won't be as easy to replace Siva or Smith if they get into foul trouble.

We've won 14 straight and 17 of the last 18 with the only loss coming in 5 OT against Notre Dame on the road. All but three of those victories were by 12 points or more. We're one of only two teams with no double digit losses and we've now beaten every team that beat us except Georgetown (grrrr).

I don't want to come here and sound arrogant but your players are going to have to play their best game of their careers to hang with us. We've got an ungodly amount of talent and depth to go along with it. There's a reason we're the #1 overall seed this year, and we've destroyed virtually everyone we've played in the postseason. This team is on a mission.

Lastly, thanks for the kind words and thoughts on Kevin Ware. Best of luck to you guys on Saturday.

[RomeoCrennel's Belly]

Prayers are with Kevin Ware. That was a gruesome injury.

[tw805]

You really can't argue with anything cardinalfan said. Louisville is an outstanding team. I had them winning the title in my bracket. They are big, fast, and deep. That said, this WSU team plays the best defense of any Shocker team I can remember, and has been one of the best defensive teams in the tournament.

In all the games where we were frustrated with the Shockers this year, it was generally each time they were cold from three point range. In those games, they continued to clank shot after shot from outside, even when those shots were unnecessary. We haven't had a game like that in the tournament. If the guards continue to shoot well from the outside, this is a great game, and I think we have a shot at winning it. If they have a 2 for 30 shooting night from outside like they did a few times during the year, this could be really ugly.

No one gave the team a shot against Pittsburgh. No one gave the team a shot against Gonzaga. No one gave the team a shot against Ohio State. All those teams were bigger, faster, and stronger than our guys, according to the pregame predictions. If they keep playing the way they have all tournament, you'd be a fool to count them out.

[ShockerPrez]

This will be the toughest game of the year, as it should be. If we win, it will be the greatest victory in the history of the program.

Go Shox!

[SubGod22]

I'm not worried. We don't have to play the greatest game ever to win. L'ville isn't perfect and can be beat. They're very good and earned their one seed, but they're not the greatest team ever. I like our chances. We've faced plenty of teams who think their D will turn us over and cause problems and our guards do just fine. We've faced people bigger than us and our posts do just fine. We've played teams that were supposed to be much quicker than us and we've done just fine. Nobody on this team will be shell shocked by L'ville.

I'm not worried.