Michigan State Spartans NCAA Tournament Preview and Game Thread: Louisville

Sorry for the late preview, everyone. Luckily, Matt wrote everything I wanted to say, anyways:

Ended up being longer than I expected but quick Louisville scouting report based on KenPom stats pic.twitter.com/l81p5t55Nx

— Matt Mc (@basketballfan66) March 28, 2015

I know that Louisville has a size advantage, but I think a slower pace would be beneficial in this game as well. If Louisville pushes pace by pressing, Tum Tum will become an important piece due to his ballhandling. Ball control has been great lately, and that needs to continue.

Prediction

I haven't had enough time to simply process the fact that this is currently happening, so this is off of the cuff. But I really do love this team... it just makes me nervous to say so. MSU had very little time to prep for this game, but so did Louisville; the two hour difference is probably not huge. FiveThirtyEight has MSU as 58% favorites, while KenPom has MSU as the slightest of favorites at 50.5%.

One thing I will say is that the last two games have been played at high leverage for the majority of those games. The fact that MSU has performed well in these pressure situations seems to indicate a flipping of the #narrative that MSU couldn't close games. I think this is another one of those.

MSU 68 - Louisville 64