Men's Basketball Hosts No. 1 Virginia on Thursday for Senior Night

GAME 30
Date: March 1, 2018
Time: 8:06 p.m.
Site: KFC Yum! Center/Crum Court, Louisville, Ky. (22,000) (129-19 in 8th year)
Television: ACC Network (WHAS-TV in Louisville) Tim Brando, play-by-play; Mike Gminski, analyst.
Radio: WHAS (840 AM) Paul Rogers, play-by-play; Bob Valvano, analyst (Sirius channel 84, XM 84, Internet 84)
Series History: UofL trails 4-11 (3-5 in Louisville, 1-6 in Charlottesville)
Last Meeting: Virginia 74, UofL 64 (Jan. 31, 2018 at Charlottesville, Va.)
UofL National Ranking: unranked
Officials: Mike Eades, James Luckie, Bill Covington, Jr.
Next UofL Game: March 3 at NC State, Raleigh, N.C., 6 p.m. ET (ESPN)

Louisville will return home for Senior night in the KFC Yum! Center as the Cardinals face the top-ranked Virginia Cavaliers on Thursday. Fans are encouraged to "Wear Red for the Seniors" in the final home game of the year. Louisville (19-10, 9-7 ACC) picked up its fourth ACC road victory of the season as the Cardinals prevailed 75-68 at Virginia Tech last Saturday. Quentin Snider matched a career-high with 22 points, buried a career-best seven three-pointers and handed out six assists. In his first career start, Dwayne Sutton produced his first career double-double with career-highs of 17 points and 11 rebounds.

Deng Adel leads the Cardinals in scoring with 15.3 points per game. Snider ranks second on the team in scoring, averaging 12.2 points per game. Snider also leads the team in assists, dishing out a team best 117 assists. Spalding is the third leading scorer for the Cardinals with 11.9 points per game. He leads the team on the boards with 8.9 rebounds per game. Freshman Jordan Nwora leads the team from behind the arc, shooting 44.2 percent on the year.

Louisville is the only team to shoot 50 percent from the field this season against Virginia. The Cardinals connected on 60 percent of its shots in the second half in Charlottesville and made 8-of-18 three-pointers for the game (.444). It was the first loss in UofL history when shooting at least 50 percent from the field, making all of its free throws, and outrebounding its opponent. Conversely, Virginia's 53.7 percent accuracy from the field was the highest for a UofL foe this year.

Virginia (26-2, 15-1 ACC) has clinched the ACC regular season title and will be the No. 1 seed in the ACC Tournament. The Cavaliers won 66-37 at Pittsburgh on Feb. 24 in their last game, limiting Pitt to seven points in the first half.

Virginia leads the nation in scoring defense (52.1) and fewest turnovers per game (8.8), and is third in field goal percentage defense (.387), fifth in three-point field goal percentage defense (.296), eighth in turnover margin (+4.5). Virginia is No. 1 in the RPI, No. 2 by Ken Pomeroy and No. 2 in the Sagarin Ratings through Feb. 25.

Louisville has a 4-12 series record against Virginia and the Cavaliers have won the last five matchups. UofL fell 74-64 at Virginia last month (1-31-18) as Spalding had 16 points and seven rebounds to lead the Cardinals.

CARDINAL NOTES

Louisville is third in the nation in blocked shots (6.4 bpg) and ranks 18th in field goal percentage defense (.405). Anas Mahmoud is eighth in the nation in blocked shots (3.0) and Ray Spalding is 22nd in offensive rebounds (3.28).
Louisville has won 15 of its last 16 Senior Day games, including last year's 71-64 victory over No. 19 Notre Dame.
Louisville has made 43.5 percent of their threes over the last eight games (73-of-168) and leads the ACC in three-point percentage for conference games only (.387). UofL is 14-2 when it makes eight or more three-pointers in a game (12 at Virginia Tech in its last game).
Louisville has held eight of its 16 ACC opponents to 40 percent or below shooting from the field. The Cardinals have collected nine or more steals in seven league games and are second in the ACC in steals in conference games (7.5 per game).
Louisville has a 42-11 record in its conference home games over the last six years (.792). UofL has the fourth-most conference home wins in its four years in the ACC with 27.
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), needing one victory to extend that streak.
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.

Men's Basketball Hosts No. 1 Virginia on Thursday for Senior Night

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Players Mentioned

Deng Adel

Anas Mahmoud

Jordan Nwora

Quentin Snider

Dwayne Sutton

University of Louisville Athletics