Men's Basketball Hosts Mississippi State in the NIT Quarterfinals on Tuesday

GAME 36 – NIT Quarterfinals
Date: March 2018, 2018
Time: 9:05 p.m.
Site: KFC Yum! Center/Crum Court, Louisville, Ky. (22,000) (131-20 in 8th year)
Television: ESPN - Bob Wischusen, play-byplay; Fran Fraschilla, analyst.
Radio: WHAS (840 AM) Paul Rogers, play-by-play; Bob Valvano, analyst
Series History: UofL leads 3-1 (2-1 in Louisville, 1-0 neutral)
Last Meeting: UofL 86, Mississippi State 62 (Dec. 30, 1987 at Honolulu, Hawai'i, Rainbow Classic third place game)

Louisville has advanced to the Quarterfinals of the 2018 National Invitation Tournament and will play the Mississippi State Bulldogs (24-11), the No. 4 seed in the region, on Tuesday, March 20 at 9:05 p.m. at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville.

Deng Adel leads the Cardinals in scoring with 15.1 points per game. Spalding is the second leading scorer for the Cardinals with 12.3 points per game. Quentin Snider ranks second on the team in scoring, averaging 11.9 points per game. Snider also leads the team in assists, dishing out a team best 143 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 44.4 percent on the year.

Mississippi State defeated No. 5 seed Nebraska 66-59 on March 14 in Starkville, Miss. and beat regional top seed Baylor 78-77 on March 18 in the first two rounds of the NIT to advance to the quarterfinals. Quinndary Weatherspoon, a 6-4 junior All- SEC guard, hit a three-pointer at the buzzer at Baylor for the final margin.

The Bulldogs have won five of their last eight games. Mississippi State is 10th in blocked shots per game (5.4), 57th in field goal percentage defense (.417) and 61st in scoring defense (67.9). Mississippi State is No. 62 in the
Sagarin Ratings, No. 59 by Ken Pomeroy and No. 56 in the RPI through March 18.

Louisville has a 3-1 series advantage against Mississippi State. In the last meeting between the schools 30 years ago, the Cardinals prevailed 86-62 in the third place game of the 1987 Rainbow Classic in Honolulu, Hawai'i on Dec. 30, 1987. Pervis Ellison scored a game-high 21 points, grabbed eight rebounds and blocked two shots to lead UofL. The 1954 matchup was one of 18 occasions when the Cardinals scored at many as 113 points in a game.

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 16-14 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 (6.1 bpg) and ranks 35th in field goal percentage defense (.412). Anas Mahmoud is ninth in the nation in blocked shots (3.0) and Ray Spalding is 38th in offensive rebounds (3.09).
Louisville has made 42.1 percent of their threes over the last 12 games (110-of-261. UofL is 16-3 when it makes eight or more three-pointers in a game. The Cards have made a combined 36-of-76 threes in its four postseason games (.474).
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 21-3 when shooting better from the field than its opponent, 20-3 when committing fewer turnovers than its opponent, and 16-3 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 Mississippi State in the NIT Quarterfinals on Tuesday

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Players Mentioned

Deng Adel

Anas Mahmoud

Jordan Nwora

Quentin Snider

Ray Spalding

University of Louisville Athletics