Louisville or Tennessee?

I have to give my vote to the Cardinals. Sure, I'm a Cardinal fan, but I'm also a realist, and so far, the Cards have just looked better.

Tennessee struggled with American early on in the first round before pulling away. Louisville on the other hand pulled away from Boise State in the first half and never looked back.

Butler took Tennessee to OT, and really had a chance of winning at the end of regulation. Louisville flat out demolished Oklahoma...it wasn't even close.

The headlines are reading Tennessee has trouble with the point, who's going to be the leader up top? Can Lofton be expected to do it all?

Louisville is grabbing headlines with their impressive D and their team play. In the OK game, 7 players scored 7 or more points.

Common opponents include UK and WVU.

Louisville beat UK 89-75 @ UK with a full line-up. UT lost to UK 72-66 @ UK with a full line-up and then beat UK 63-60 @ UT with UK missing star center Patrick Patterson. That's +14 for UL opposed to UT's -6 and +3.

Tennessee beat WVU 74-72 @ WVU. Louisville beat WVU 63-54 @ UL. That's +9 for UL opposed to +2 for UT.

Surely this doesn't mean much going into Thursday's match, but with the past week, Louisville looks to be firing on all cylinders while UT may be self destructing (poor gaurd play). Add in Rick Pitino vs. Bruce Pearl, this should be a quality match. However, I see the Cards winning this one in a medium scoring game.

UL 64-UT 57

Tennessee had 6 players score 8 or more points vs. Butler and  went 12 deep in a close game.  The Vols are just as deep and talented as Louisville, if not more.  And while the Cards have undoubtedly looked better to this point in the tournament, the Vols have played up (or down) to their competition all season.  It's not like they've won 31 games by mistake with the #1 SOS.

Lofton hasn't done a thing this tournament (5 points vs. American, 9 points vs. Butler) and they still won.  The Vols have a couple of days to work on some sets to get Lofton some shots, and if he's on, The 'Ville will be in trouble.   Should be a great game though.

Tennesee split the two games with Kentucky.

I think Lofton is going to play with a chip on his shoulder this game. People are well aware that he wanted to go to UK and yet Tubby turned him down. Well he also wanted to go to Louisville and Pitino did the same thing. After 4 years he will finally get a shot at them and he will show them what they missed out on just like he has showed UK every time they played them. Lofton will score in the high 20's and Tennessee will win 80-70.

Wow! This is going to be a tough one ! I was hoping that OU will give UL all they can handle, totally didn't expect that kinds of result. Sure so far UT has looked stuggle against American, and a strong 30 wins Butler team. Chris Lofton isn't in his Pre-season American form. He has got  to wake up and knock down 3s in order to keep the Vols in the game.

PG is such an important position, Ramar attack's too much, and Jordan Howell is struggling at the wrong time that he couldn't knock down open 3s. Pearl turns to JP Prince, a 6'4 SF to take over the Point position. Will they make it to take UNC or Wash S. It's hard to say with out a good, or decent PG a team can go far in a tournment, but after all it has been the Hot shooting of their SG and strong scoring inside. Tyler Smith has been saving Vols several times this year, make UT a top team in the nation. Against UL, Tenn has got to use their top A game in order to pull out a win.

UT has won several close game this season, so I'm going to give the close edge to UT, and it will be a high scoring game, so I'm going to Pred..

UT ( 87 )  - ( 82 ) UL