Tonight at 9:50 p.m. ET the No. 4 seed Louisville Cardinals, the defending NCAA champs, will begin their journey to a third straight Final Four when they tip off against the No. 13 Manhattan Jaspers. Watch the game on TNT or live stream it for free by clicking this link. Louisville fans can hear the game on WKRD 790 AM, while Jaspers fans can catch the radio broadcast on ESPN 1350.
Like most college basketball fans, Louisville coach Rick Pitino was very surprised that his Cardinals were a No. 4 seed. I think the pairings sometimes lack common sense," Pitino said. "I don't think they would put somewhere down the road Duke-North Carolina so ... the matchups don't make sense to me. I'm OK with the seedings. I'm not OK with the matchups.
"But the selection committee is very fair, very honorable, very honest people, so I can't protest too much because they're doing the best job that they can do. Maybe they're a bunch of soccer ADs, I don't know."
While Louisville is one of the hottest picks to reach the Final Four, Pitino is agitated to receive the pairing vs. the Jaspers, namely because of the two sides' similar styles.
"We press like him, we trap like him, his offensive sets are just like ours," Pitino said. "That's why I don't like the game. I don't think it's fair. I don't like it. I don't know why they would do it. I just don't like the game at all for either one of us. We won the national championship and obviously we're more heralded, but this is anybody's game. This is not a 1-16."
Manhattan's press may fail against Louisville's star point guard Russ Smith, who scored 18.3 points and dished out 4.7 assists a game this year, both team-highs.
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