No. 24 Louisville will stay in the Lone Star State as the Cardinals return to Atlantic Coast Conference action Tuesday to face SMU in Dallas.
As the team looks to extend its winning streak to six games, attention will be on Mikel Brown Jr. to see if the freshman can continue his hot streak for the Cardinals (19-6, 8-4 ACC).
The 6-foot-5 point guard scored 29 points in Louisville’s 82-71 victory over Baylor on Saturday in Fort Worth. That was after he tied Wes Unseld’s school record and broke the ACC freshman mark with 45 points in a 118-77 whipping of visiting North Carolina State on Feb. 9.
Before his historic performance against over the Wolfpack, Brown averaged 15.4 points per game and had missed eight games with a lower back injury. After the past week, he’s now averaging 17.9 per game, good for eighth overall in the ACC.
Brown also had nine rebounds against NC State and five steals against Baylor, both season highs.
“He’s been affecting the game in so many ways outside of scoring,” Louisville coach Pat Kelsey said. “We all know in our program, from head to toe … he’s been the quarterback on the floor.”
The Mustangs (17-8, 6-6) are coming off a tough 79-78 loss at Syracuse on Saturday. SMU led for most of the contest and held a 12-point advantage with 12 minutes remaining, only to see the Orange win it on a Nate Kingz layup with 2 seconds.
“It’s a hard loss for us because we did a lot of things well,” SMU coach Andy Enfield said. “A lot of second-chance points and more transition points.”
Freshman Jaden Toombs led SMU with 19 points off the bench. The 6-foot-10 center had his second-best scoring game of the season, making 7 of 11 from the floor.
Boopie Miller, the ACC’s sixth-best scorer at 18.9 ppg, tied a season low with 11 points in the loss Saturday, but he added seven assists to just one turnover and grabbed six rebounds.
Tuesday’s game will feature the conference’s top two offenses. The Cardinals lead the ACC, averaging 86.9 per game, with SMU at 86.2. The two schools also feature multiple prolific scorers, with four among the conference’s top 10.
Louisville’s Ryan Conwell falls between Miller and Brown in seventh with an 18.7 average. However, aside from the 31 points that the senior guard put up against NC State, Conwell has struggled of late, especially from beyond the 3-point arc. In his last five games, Conwell has hit just 10 of 35 (28.6%) on 3-point attempts. Even with that slump, he still leads the conference, averaging 3.4 treys per game, and his 36% shooting clip from deep is seventh best in the ACC.
The Mustangs’ Jaron Pierre Jr. ranks ninth in the ACC with a 17.4 scoring average. Before being limited to 12 against Syracuse, the senior guard had three consecutive 20-point games. He also made 44% of his 3-pointers (11 for 25) over his last four games.
Tuesday’s game may have an impact on seeding in next month’s ACC tournament.
Louisville, which beat SMU at home 88-74 on Jan. 31, is one of three teams with four conference losses, and the Cardinals are one game back of fourth-place Miami for the last double bye.
SMU sits eighth, but the Mustangs have three 6-7 teams right behind them. The eighth- and ninth-place teams earn the final two single byes in the tournament, scheduled to start March 10.
