Louisville at Pitt preview

Louisville Cardinals (12-5, 2-3) at Pittsburgh Panthers (8-9, 1-3)

Game Time: 8 p.m.

Location: Petersen Events Center: Pittsburgh, Pa.

Television: ESPN2

Announcers: Dave O’Brien (play-by-play) and Cory Alexander (analysis)

Favorite: Louisville by 5.5

Series: Louisville leads, 23-11

Last Meeting: Louisville won 79-68 on March 1, 2025 in Louisville

Series History:

Projected Starting Lineups:

Louisville

• G Adrian Wooley (6-4, 200, So.)
• G Isaac McKneely (6-4, 195, Sr.)
• G Ryan Conwell (6-4, 215, Sr.)
• F J’Vonne Hadley (6-7, 210, Sr.)
• C Sananda Fru (6-11, 245, Jr.)

Pittsburgh

• G Damarco Minor (6-0, 190, Sr.)
• G Omari Witherspoon (6-4, 190, Fr)
• G Barry Dunning Jr. (6-6, 195, Sr.)
• F Roman Siulepa (6-6, 220, Fr.)
• F Cameron Corhen (6-10, 235, Sr.)

Statistics:

Injury Reports:

Pitt’s Season to Date:

Relevant Videos:

About Pitt:

It’s year eight of the Jeff Capel experience at Pittsburgh, and things do not appear to be getting much better.

The Panthers enter Saturday night’s game against Louisville with a 1-3 mark in ACC play and a losing overall record at 8-9. They beat Ohio State at the buzzer (again), but were beaten pretty handily by every other decent team they played during their non-conference schedule, and also took a pair of embarrassing home losses to Quinnipiac and Hofstra.

To its credit, Pitt is coming off arguably its most impressive overall performance of the season — a dominant 89-66 road win over Georgia Tech on Wednesday. The Panthers were a scorching 11-of-26 from three in that game, and shot 53.2 percent from the field overall.

Pitt’s leading scorer and its top performer in recent weeks is actually a non-starter. Sophomore guard Brandin Cummings has come off the bench and scored 52 points (and taken a whopping 37 shots) in the Panthers’ last two games. When he gets it going, Cummings, whose brother Nelly also played at Pitt, is about as good a pure scorer as there is in the conference. When he doesn’t have it going … he’s still looking to score. Cummings has a 23-point, a 29-point and a 34-point game this season, but he’s also been held to single digits in half of the games he’s played.

In his career, which spans just a season and-a-half, Cummings has three of the top five bench scoring performances in Pitt history.

Senior Cameron Corhen (13.2 ppg/7.9 rpg) is another returnee Louisville fans should be familiar with. He’s big, he’s physical and he’s really good around the rim. He’s not, however, a particularly great defender, which is a problem for a team that is lacking when it comes to help for Corhen inside. There’s a reason Cohen ranks third in the ACC in minutes played. If Louisville can get him into foul trouble, Capel doesn’t have much more quality size to throw at the Cards.

Barry Dunning Jr. (12.4 ppg), who is playing for his fourth school in as many years, and Damarco Minor (10.3 ppg) are both reliable outside threats. Dunning is more of a threat as a catch and shoot guy than he is off the bounce, while Minor is an OK, not great playmaker from the point guard position.

This isn’t a team that’s lacking in offensive skill. It does everything well enough (besides get to the free-throw line), it just doesn’t do anything particularly great. If Louisville steps up its defensive effort, it should hold the Panthers to a reasonable point total. If the Cards defend the way they have their last few outings, Pitt is fully capable of taking advantage to a point where it puts itself in a position to win the game.

Defensively, Pitt will look to press Louisville full-court. Unlike Virginia, which threw a token press at the Cards in an effort to simply try and slow them down, the Panthers will press U of L and look to turn them over. It’ll take a team effort to avoid giving them extra possessions or easy buckets off live ball turnovers. Pitt is also a good defensive team in transition, which obviously will come into play in this game.

In the halfcourt, I think Pitt has far more issues. They aren’t good at defending post-ups, they aren’t very good in ball screen coverage, and they seem to really struggle with effective communication. The Panthers rank 15th in the ACC in 2-point defense, and in all three of their conference losses, their opponent has shot better than 61 percent from inside the arc. It certainly appears that this game — much like the Boston College game last week — should present a major opportunity for Sananda Fru.

If they run their offense accordingly and take care of the ball well enough against Pitt’s pressure, Louisville should be able to create high quality looks inside the arc while still getting its requisite clean looks from three.

Notable:

—After losing 17 of 18 games to the Cardinals, Pitt had won five consecutive games (all by double figures) against Louisville before U of L swept the Panthers last season.

—Louisville is 10-5 all-time in road games against Pitt.

—Louisville is 15-6 against Pitt since joining the ACC in 2014-15.

—Pitt is 54-2 under head coach Jeff Capel when scoring 80 points or more.

—Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey is 169-66 all-time in conference play as a head coach. He has a 79-39 record all-time in away league games, for a winning percentage of 66.9% on the road.

—Louisville is 0-8 under head coach Pat Kelsey when trailing by 5 points or more at halftime.

—Pitt has out-rebounded its opponent in seven of its eight wins so far this season.

—Pitt has held its opponents to just 29.7 percent from three in its eight wins, but opponents are shooting 37.6 percent from deep in the team’s nine losses.

—Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey is 2-0 all-time in games against Pittsburgh.

—Pitt head coach Jeff Capel is 6-7 all-time in games against Louisville.

—Louisville is 10-2 in ACC road games under Pat Kelsey, but the Cards are just 1-3 in true road games so far this season.

—Louisville has had four games of at least 24 assists, the first time since 2010-11 that the program has had multiple games of 24+ assists; the Cardinals had five games of at 24+ assists that season.

—Louisville has hit the 100-point mark four times in a season for the first time since 1989-90.

—Louisville is 39-0 under head coach Pat Kelsey when leading with five minutes to play. The Cardinals are also 0-12 under Kelsey when trailing with five minutes to play.

—Louisville is 14-0 over the past 11 seasons when limiting opponents to no more than one three-point field goal.

—Louisville is 120-0 all-time when scoring 100 or more points in non-overtime games.

—Louisville has won 167 consecutive games when holding an opponent under 50 points.

Ken Pomeroy Prediction: Louisville 80, Pittsburgh 74