Pitt vs. Louisville: Open Gamethread

Pitt's basketball team has a difficult game ahead of them facing Louisville on the road. For the Panthers, it's yet another ranked team. This is the third in four games that Pitt has had to open the season so there's not been much of an easing into the conference schedule.

Louisville comes into the game with three losses already, but they've yet to lose to an unranked team since their defeats have come at the hands of ranked Baylor, Virginia, and Notre Dame teams. Two of those have come on their own court, too, so the Cardinals aren't unbeatable there.

The Cards have faced one of the most challenging schedules in the country. In addition to those three games, they also beat No. 15 Purdue, No. 16 Indiana, and No. 6 Kentucky. Louisville is plenty battle tested and we're only at about the midway point for the season.

Historically, this has just been a bad matchup for Pitt, who hasn't beaten the Cards since 2010. The Panthers have had several three-point losses on the road against Louisville since then in their last few Big East years, but they haven't been able to defeat them in some time.

Louisville's mostly done it with defense so far this year, which might bode well for Pitt after what the offense did against Virginia last week. Leading scorer Donovan Mitchell averages just over 13 points per game and the team scores a modest 75 points per contest (Pitt, by comparison, is a little over 81). But what the Cardinals have done defensively has been incredible - especially considering the schedule they've played. They give up only about 61 points per game and are holding teams to 43.3% shooting from the field.

On the surface, the Panthers look like they have their work cut out for them. But not many gave them a chance to beat a Top 15 Virginia team at home, either. You just don't know what you'll get and if the team plays its best, they're capable of knocking off almost anyone.

Game time at 7:00 p.m. and locally, you can catch it on ROOT Sports.

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