Men's Basketball Hosts Middle Tennessee in the Second Round of the NIT

GAME 35 – NIT Second Round
Date: March 18, 2018
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Site: KFC Yum! Center/Crum Court, Louisville, Ky. (22,000) (130-20 in 8th year)
Television: ESPN2 - Anish Shroff play-by-play; Dino Gaudio, analyst.
Radio: WHAS (840 AM) Paul Rogers, play-by-play; Bob Valvano, analyst
Series History: UofL leads 2-0 (1-0 in Louisville, 1-0 neutral)
Last Meeting: UofL 76, Middle Tennessee 68 (Dec. 20, 2005 at Freedom Hall, Louisville, Ky.; Billy Minardi Classic first round)

Louisville has advanced to the Second Round of the 2018 National Invitation Tournament and will play the third-seeded Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders (25-7) on Sunday, March 18 at 6:30 p.m. in the KFC Yum! Center.

Deng Adel leads the Cardinals in scoring with 15.6 points per game. Spalding is the second leading scorer for the Cardinals with 12.1 points per game. Quentin Snider ranks second on the team in scoring, averaging 12.1 points per game. Snider also leads the team in assists, dishing out a team best 135 assists. Spalding leads the team on the boards with 8.6 rebounds per game. Freshman Jordan Nwora leads the team from behind the arc, shooting 43.5 percent on the year.

Middle Tennessee, which spent two weeks in the AP Top 25 this season and is among those receiving votes in the latest ranking, won its second consecutive Conference USA regular season championship this season with a 16-2 league record. The Blue Raiders are making their fourth straight postseason tournament appearance and seventh in the last nine years, including participating in three NCAA Tournaments, two NIT and two CIT events.

Senior forward Nick King (20.9 ppg, 8.5 rpg) was honored as the C-USA Player of the Year and was a third team USA Today All-America selection, the Blue Raiders' first-ever All-American. He is a finalist for the Karl Malone Power Forward of the Year, of which the inaugural award was won by Louisville's Montrezl Harrell in 2015. King has 11 double-doubles on the season and is 29th in the nation in scoring average. Senior guard Giddy Potts (13.4 ppg) was a second-team All-C-USA pick and is 56th in the nation in three-point percentage (.409, 83-of-203 three-pointers).

In its last meeting against Middle Tennessee, Brandon Jenkins scored 20 points and handed out five assists to lead the Cardinals to a 76-68 victory in the first round of the 2005 Billy Minardi Classic played in Louisville's Freedom Hall (12-20-05). Current UofL coach David Padgett totaled 18 points, four rebounds and two blocked shots as the Cardinals' starting center in that game as UofL limited MTSU to 37.5 percent shooting from the floor. It was current Blue Raiders' coach Kermit Davis' fourth season at Middle Tennessee.

CARDINAL NOTES

Deng Adel is 13 points short of becoming the Cardinals' 69th career 1,000-point scorer.
Louisville is participating in postseason competition for the 48th time in the last 53 years.
This is Louisville's 15th appearance in the NIT. The Cardinals have a 15-14 record in the postseason event and have reached the national semifinals on three occasions, winning the 1956 NIT Championship.
Louisville is fourth in the nation in blocked shots (6.2 bpg) and ranks 31st in field goal percentage defense (.409). Anas Mahmoud is sixth in the nation in blocked shots (3.0) and Ray Spalding is 31st in offensive rebounds (3.15).
Louisville has made 41.3 percent of their threes over the last 11 games (99-of-240. UofL is 15-3 when it makes eight or more three-pointers in a game. The Cards made a combined 19-of-37 threes in its two ACC Tournament games (.514).

Louisville held eight of its 18 ACC opponents to 40 percent or below shooting from the field. The Cardinals collected nine or more steals in seven league games and are second in the ACC in steals in conference games (7.0 per game).

David Padgett joins Denny Crum (26 wins in 1971-72) and John Dromo (21 in 1967-68) as the only UofL coaches to have won 20 games in their first season with the Cardinals.
Louisville is one of just four schools which have won 20 or more games in each of the last 16 seasons (also Kansas, Duke and Gonzaga), reaching its 20th victory in the ACC Tournament.
Louisville is 20-3 when shooting better from the field than its opponent, 19-3 when committing fewer turnovers than its opponent, and 15-2 when making eight or more three-pointers in a game.
Four Cardinals were named to the 2018 All- ACC Academic Team (ACC-best 24 selections over 4 years). UofL 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.

Men's Basketball Hosts Middle Tennessee in the Second Round of the NIT

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Deng Adel

Anas Mahmoud

Jordan Nwora

Quentin Snider

Ray Spalding

University of Louisville Athletics

Men's Basketball Hosts Middle Tennessee in the Second Round of the NIT

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Deng Adel

Anas Mahmoud

Jordan Nwora

Quentin Snider

Ray Spalding

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