The Louisville Cardinals had a quick drop from the top of the college basketball rankings world earlier this season because of three straight losses, but have won two in a row since then. The Cardinals are 2-2 against ranked teams this season. Louisville had 11 straight wins after losing to #5 Duke around Thanksgiving and are tied for third in the Big East with a 6-3 conference record. The team is one of six that are ranked among its conference mates, with #9 Syracuse holding the highest honors and Notre Dame just barely in the top 25.
ESPN3 is streaming the game live online, but it is blacked out in some areas. The Louisville Cardinals' live stream is here. The Rutgers radio call is here.
Russ Smith averages 18.4 points per game to lead the Louisville team. He's also first in steals per game (2.2) and second in assists (2.6). Gorgui Dieng is the leading rebounder, falling just 0.1 boards and 0.7 points short of averaging a double-double every game. He has hit half of his shots this season (.500), which is second on the team. Montrezl Harrell has a .612 shooting percentage.
Louisville easily knocked conference-mate Marquette out of the top 25 with its last game, a 70-51 win for the home team on Sunday afternoon. The Golden Eagles shot just 35>8 percent from the floor, whole the Cardinals got 18 points and five rebounds out of Smith, eight boards from Dieng and seven assists from Peyton Siva.
Rutgers enters Wednesday night's match-up with four straight losses and five defeats in the last six games. It's the toughest past of the schedule for the Scarlet Knights, as the New Jersey team faces nine ranked teams this season, with three of those contests during this skid and two more in a row including this one. Rutgers is 3-6 through nine conference games, sitting four games back of Syracuse for first place.
Eli Carter is one of two Scarlet Knights to average double-digit points per game with 15.2. Dane Miller paces the team in both rebounds (5.7) and assists (2.7). Austin Johnson is the leader in shooting percentage with a .554 mark, and Myles Mack is making .451 of his three-pointers this year to lead the team.
This will be the first game for Rutgers this month. The team dropped its last contest on January 30, as the Cincinnati Bearcats overcame a ten-point deficit and defeated the Scarlet Knights 62-54. Rutgers made almost half of its three-point shots (47.1 percent) and only missed one free throw all game, but Cincinnati had 11 more rebounds, six more assists and blocked eight shots as a team, with Justin Jackson registering six on his own.
These teams last played almost a year ago to the day, with then #25 Louisville topping Rutgers 78-66 in Kentucky on February 4, 2012. Carter had 24 points to lead all scorers in the game, but no other Scarlet Knight notched 10 points. Chane Behanan made 11 of his 12 shots and racked up 23 points, adding 11 rebounds (eight of them offensive). Chris Smith had 13 boards and six assists to lead the game in both categories.
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