Big East Tournament Semifinals
#3 Louisville Cardinals vs. #2 Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
Friday, March 11, 2011, 9:00 pm Eastern, TV: ESPN
Opening Line: Notre Dame -1
Current Line: Notre Dame -1
Opening Total: 137.5
Current Total: 138
Money Line: Notre Dame -115 / Louisville -105
The third-seeded Louisville Cardinals (24-8) and second-seeded Notre Dame Fighting Irish (26-5) left no doubts that they were the superior teams en route to convincing wins in the quarterfinals of the Big East Conference tournament on Thursday. Now the Cardinals and Fighting Irish (-1) will each try to take the next step by advancing to the conference title game with another victory in Friday’s semifinals at Madison Square Garden in New York.
What was more impressive though is that the teams played even better in the second half of their wins, both outscoring their opponents by at least 20 points after the break in blowouts. Notre Dame served notice as a potential #1 seed in the NCAA tournament with an 89-51 demolition of #10 seed Cincinnati while Louisville ran away from #11 Marquette later in an 81-56 rout.
The Cardinals led the Golden Eagles only 36-31 at halftime and got 22 points in 24 minutes off the bench from Mike Marra, who made six of the team’s 13 baskets from 3-point range. Louisville had four players score in double figures and was able to overcome poor shooting performances from Kyle Kuric and Peyton Siva, as the duo combined to make just 7 of 20 shots from the field, including 3 of 13 from beyond the arc.
The Irish were even more dominant in the earlier night game thanks to the continued dominance of Big East Player of the Year Ben Hansbrough and Tim Abromaitis. The two seniors made six 3-pointers and totaled 40 points between them while fellow senior Carleton Scott scored 18. They won their fifth game in a row and have only lost once in their last 13 games, going 10-3 against the spread during that stretch.
With top seed Pittsburgh losing to Connecticut in the first game of the day, Notre Dame definitely looked poised to dodge the upset bug and seize what could be the lone #1 seed for the conference depending on what happens in the ACC tournament. The Panthers might lose their shot at a #1 seed if Duke takes care of business and wins the tournament championship.
Louisville suffered a tough 89-79 road loss to the Irish in overtime on February 9, the fourth time in seven meetings that an extra session was required to determine the outcome. Notre Dame is 6-1 ATS in the last seven games between the teams despite going 3-4 straight-up in those games. The OVER is also 7-1 in the last eight meetings, with the winner totaling 87 points or more seven times.
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