The Louisville Cardinals will host the North Carolina Tar Heels on Monday night in a matchup of ranked ACC opponents. North Carolina comes into the game at 19-2 (8-0) and ranked second in the nation while Louisville comes in at 17-4 (6-2) and ranked 19th in the nation.
North Carolina is the only undefeated team left in ACC play this season and are two games ahead of the second place team which happens to be Louisville. UNC's ACC schedule has been pretty soft so far but it is set to pick up so they will have a hard time remaining unbeaten. Overall the Tar Heels have won 12 straight games since losing at the buzzer against Texas and look every bit the national championship contender they were thought to be preseason.
North Carolina is led by senior forward Brice Johnson who is having an ACC Player of the Year type season thus far. Johnson is averaging 16.8 points and 10.2 rebounds per game while shooting 62 percent from the field. Johnson has racked up a double-double in each of his last three games and will look to continue that streak on Monday.
While UNC might have the frontrunner for ACC Player of the Year they also have the preseason ACC Player of the Year in Marcus Paige. Paige hasn't been incredibly efficient this season but he makes a huge difference for this team because he is a big time threat with the ball. Since Paige came back from injury the Tar Heels have looked like a completely different team. Over his past five games Paige has shot just 9-44 though so he will be looking to break out of that slump.
While UNC looks like a title contender this season Louisville is still looking for that marquee win. The Cardinals haven't suffered a bad loss yet but they also haven't had that big win to push them over the top, beating UNC on Monday would qualify. Louisville is coming off a game in which they were dominated at home by Virginia so they are looking to get that bad taste out of their mouth.
The Cardinals are led by senior transfer Damion Lee who is first on the team with his 16.7 points per game. Lee is also shooting 46 percent from the field and 36 percent from three. Lee couldn't get anything going against Virginia's vaunted defense, much like the rest of the team, but besides that game he has scored in double figures in 19 out of the 20 other games. Last Wednesday, in a win over Virginia Tech, Lee dropped a season high 29 points on just eight field goal attempts.
The only player to really do anything productive for Louisville against Virginia was freshman Raymond Spalding. Spalding was a highly touted recruit coming into this season but has struggled with consistency. The 6-foot-10 forward has scored in double figures just five times this season but that last game against Virginia could be a sign of things to come. On the season Spalding is averaging 5.7 points and 4.4 rebounds in 16.5 minutes per game while making 60 percent of his field goals and is a guy to watch for.
These two teams met up three times last season with North Carolina having won two of the three. Each team won on their respective home floors but UNC took the rubber match in the ACC tournament. The Cardinals have lost nine of their last 11 against top-five teams while UNC has won five of their last seven against top 25 teams.
The game is scheduled to tip off at 7 P.M. Eastern time on ESPN and to watch the live broadcast go here. For the North Carolina radio broadcast go here and for the Louisville radio broadcast go here.
