The defending national champion Louisville Cardinals have opened up the 2013-2014 season 4-0 and will take that unblemished record on the road Saturday to take on the 1-3 Fairfield Stags.
Rick Pitino and the Cards have had a fairly easy go of defending that title so far, as every one of their games have been handled rather easily on their part. They’re averaging 88 points per game, led by guard Russ Smith who has averaged 18.8 ppg on his own in the first four.
If there has been one concern of Pitino so far, though, it’s been turnovers. In their last game on Tuesday night, they turned the ball over seven times, and the hall-of-fame head coach stressed to ESPN how important it is not to let that happen:
"“One of the points of emphasis this year is we are going to not turn the ball over because we are a possession team,” Pitino said. “If you’re going to press, you are going to be all over the floor trapping and using that much energy. If you just give it away, all that energy was for naught.”"
Pitino states a pretty obvious point there. Turning the ball over against sub-par competition in these early games can be masked with their superior athleticism, but that won’t be the case when they hit conference.
But, for this game in particular, they may be able to turn the ball over 15 times and still walk away with the win, as Fairfield has struggled mightily on offense to start the year.
Date: Nov. 23
Start Time: 2pm ET
Location: Uncasville, CT
Arena: Mohegan Sun Arena
Live Stream: ESPN3
Who do you think wins this one? Can the champs push their record to 5-0, or will Fairfield shock the college basketball world on Saturday? Sound off with your thoughts in the comments section below.