April 1 - UNC to Play Louisville on Monday Night

There is probably not a whole lot the NCAA tournament can do to top last weekend, but tomorrow night’s doubleheader in St. Louis should be fun to watch nevertheless. I say this because we have a couple of tasty matchups and I am willing to bet that we will get at least one real good game. I am not going to go crazy and predict two since that rarely happens in the Final Four, but I think one is a safe bet.

Tomorrow’s opener has Louisville taking on the country’s top team in Illinois, and this has all the trappings of being a track meet. Both of these teams like to play fast and loose and for my money, Louisville does it just a bit better than Illinois. If I had to pick the key to this game, I would say it comes down to how well Illini guard Deron Williams can handle Larry O’Bannon. Williams shut down Salim Stoudamire last Saturday and if he can do the same thing to O’Bannon, Louisville may be in trouble. But I don’t see that happening and that is why I am picking Louisville. I think the Cards are playing better then anyone else left in the tourney and so long as they don’t have a horrendous night from three point land, they will manage to secure a narrow victory. Don’t get me wrong – Illinois is a tough team. But they basically got manhandled last weekend and, in the process, Illinois's defense was exposed as pretty ordinary. Most importantly, their guards can be taken off the dribble and there really is no credible last line of defense. I would be surprised if Pitino doesn’t exploit this weakness with his super quick backcourt.

In the second game, I am going to ignore my gut feeling and pick UNC. I have virtually zero confidence in this pick, especially since the game features a huge coaching mismatch. But something tells me that this is a favorable matchup for North Carolina since the Spartans like to play up-tempo and that is right in UNC’s wheelhouse. With that said, I wouldn’t be surprised to see MSU coach Tom Izzo throw UNC a curve by slowing things down a notch. He knows he will have trouble beating UNC in a track meet, so it may make sense to take a dozen possessions out of the game. I usually frown on teams getting away from what they are, but in this case, it may give MSU the edge it needs to win the game. On the other side, Roy Williams has got to serve up a giant helping of Sean May. I would bang it into May early and often, hoping that number 42 can pick up some fouls on MSU center Paul Davis. If he succeeds, MSU is in big trouble because Davis is really the only guy on the team who can guard someone as strong as May. The other key for North Carolina is Raymond Felton. The Carolina point guard tends to play out of control in big spots so there is every reason to believe he will be kicking it around on Saturday night. As an old Carolina fan, this prospect terrifies me. Quite frankly, I think it is highly probable that Felton plays poorly on Saturday night and I would be content if he could keep his turnovers down to four. UNC probably has enough horses to overcome Felton’s miscues, but that remains to be seen.