Men's Basketball Hosts Wake Forest on Saturday Night

GAME 21
Date: Jan. 27, 2018
Time: 8:06 p.m.
Site: KFC Yum! Center/Crum Court, Louisville, Ky. (22,000) (127-16 in 8th year)
Television: ACC Network/WAVE-TV in Louisville - Tom Werme, play-by-play; Mike Gminski, analyst.
Radio: WKRD (790 AM) Paul Rogers, play-by-play; Nick Curran, analyst (Sirius channel 134, XM 193, Internet 955)
Series History: UofL leads 4-2 (1-0 in Louisville, 1-1 in Winston-Salem, 2-1 neutral)
Last Meeting: Wake Forest 88, UofL 81 (March 1, 2017 at Winston-Salem, N.C.)
UofL National Ranking: unranked (receiving votes in the AP and USA Today polls)
Officials: Bert Smith, Earl Walton, Lamont Simpson
Next UofL Game: Jan. 31 at Virginia, Charlottesville, Va., 7 p.m. ET (ESPN2)

Louisville will play four of its next five at home in the KFC Yum! Center beginning with the Wake Forest Demon Deacons on Saturday. Louisville (15-5, 5-2 ACC) lost for the first time in five games in falling 78-75 in overtime at No. 24 Miami on Wednesday. Quentin Snider's 18 points and three assists led the Cardinals, who made 64 percent of their free throws, one of five times this season shooting below 70 percent at the line. UofL blocked 10 shots, including five by Ray Spalding (13 rebounds) and four by Anas Mahmoud (15 points).

Deng Adel leads the Cardinals in scoring with 15.7 points per game. Quentin Snider ranks second on the team, averaging 13.1 points per game while dishing out a team best 82 assists. Spalding leads the team on the boards with 9.5 rebounds per game and ranks third on the team in scoring with 11.3 points per game. Freshman Jordan Nwora leads the team from behind the arc, shooting 40 percent on the year.

Wake Forest (8-12, 1-7 ACC), has dropped its last six games, falling 84-70 at home to No. 4 Duke on Jan. 23 in its last outing. Center Doral Moore totaled 18 points and 12 rebounds for the Demon Deacons while making all nine of his field goals.

Wake's lone ACC victory this season was a 73-67 win over Syracuse on Jan. 3. Four Demon Deacons have made at least 24 three-pointers this season. Scoring leader Bryant Crawford (15.7 ppg) reached the 1,000-point milestone earlier this season (1,260 points now). Wake Forest is 57th nationally in three-point field goal percentage (.381) and are No. 85 in the Sagarin Ratings, No. 93 by Ken Pomeroy, and No. 129 in the RPI through Jan. 25.

Louisville has a 4-2 series advantage over Wake Forest, winning two of the last three matchups. Louisville fell 88-81 in Winston-Salem, N.C. in last year's meeting (3-1-17) as Deng Adel scored a season-high 22 points to lead the Cardinals.

CARDINAL NOTES

Louisville has held six of its seven ACC opponents to 40 percent or below shooting from the field, including limiting Miami to 36.9 percent shooting in its last game. The Cardinals have collected nine or more steals in five conference games (9 vs. Miami).
Louisville is second in the nation in blocked shots (7.4 bpg) and ranks seventh in field goal percentage defense (.384) and 10th in 3-point defense (.301). Center Anas Mahmoud is fourth in the nation in blocked shots (3.55) and Ray Spalding is 15th in offensive rebounds (2.15).
Deng Adel has scored in double figures in 22 of his last 23 games dating back to last season.
Louisville has a 40-8 record in its conference home games over the last six years (.833), including an 8-1 record last year. UofL is tied for the third-most conference road wins in its four years in the ACC with 25.
Louisville is one of just four schools which have won 20 or more games in each of the last 15 seasons (also Kansas, Duke and Gonzaga).
Louisville has a 28-10 record during the month of January over the last five years (.737).
Louisville passed the three million mark in total home attendance on Jan. 21 in its eighth year in the KFC Yum! Center (3,002,074 now).
Louisville achieved a collective 3.083 grade-point average for the 2017 fall semester, with nine of 14 current student-athletes earning a 3.0 or better GPA (19th consecutive semester with at least a team 3.0 GPA). UofL is one of only two schools in the nation to have perfect men's basketball multi-year Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores each of the past four years. A league-high six Cardinals were named to the 2017 All-ACC Academic Team.

University of Louisville Athletics

Players Mentioned

Deng Adel

Anas Mahmoud

Jordan Nwora

Quentin Snider

Ray Spalding

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