Louisville Cardinals vs. Seton Hall Pirates
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Two teams hoping to take another step towards March Madness will square off on Thursday night when the Louisville Cardinals (12-6, 5-8 ATS) face the Seton Hall Pirates (10-6, 3-7 ATS). Louisville had gotten off to a solid 2-0 start in Big East play, but losses to Villanova (92-84) and Pittsburgh (82-77) were major setbacks. Seton Hall appears to be a program that is quite close to breaking through. The Pirates only have one conference victory in five tries, with the most recent defeat coming at Georgetown last week 85-73.

Louisville loves to fly up and down the floor as fast as it can, and it’s showing on the scoreboard. The Cards are averaging 80.9 points per game in ’09-’10, and have scored at least 70 points in all but three of their games this year. F Samardo Samuels and G Edgar Sosa are the heart and soul of this program right now, and it’ll be up to those two to push Louisville to victory on Thursday. Samuels leads the team in both scoring (16.3 points per game) and rebounding (7.8 per game), while Sosa is #2 on the team with 13.8 points per game and leads the squad in assists with 4.0 per contest. The biggest question mark has been a defense which has allowed 76.6 points per game over its L/5 games.

HC Bobby Gonzalez certainly doesn’t mind letting his team run with the Cardinals. Only three teams in the nation are scoring more points per game than the Pirates are. The only teams to keep this squad in the 60s since the first game of this year have been Connecticut and Temple. No one has figured out how to stop G Jeremy Hazell, who has scored at least 11 points in every game since his first of the season. He has already logged at least 33 points five times in ’09-’10, and he has averaged 27.7 points per game in his L/6. Seeing how he accounts for almost 30% of his team’s scoring though, it’s clear that Hazell isn’t getting enough help for Seton Hall to win games, and that’s why it is hovering right around the .500 mark on the year.

Since Seton Hall and Louisville entered the Big East, the Cardinals hold a 4-1 series lead SU. However, the Pirates are 3-2 ATS in those five college basketball betting showdowns. Every game has had at least 151 points scored in it, which is probably a sign of things to come; all five games surpassed the posted ‘total’.

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