Louisville vs Kentucky: 3 Players Who Must Shine for the Cardinals

The Louisville vs. Kentucky matchup is expected to have one outcome and one outcome only—a Wildcats victory.

According to Bovada, Kentucky is favored to win Saturday's tilt against Louisville by 8.5 points. Kind of funny seeing as the Wildcats only won by seven when they hosted the Cardinals at Rupp Arena way back on New Year's Eve.

But the spread doesn't matter to Louisville. All the Cardinals care about is pulling off the upset, which is going to be very, very difficult. Every man in a Cardinals uniform will have to step up his game.

Especially these three guys.

Chris Smith

Chris Smith is not one of Louisville's stars. He's more of a role player, a guy capable of stepping in and providing a few points here and there without doing anything overly dramatic.

So why him?

Precisely because he's the best three-point shooter on a team that does not feature any elite three-point shooters. He shot roughly 40 percent from beyond the arc this season, which isn't bad seeing as how the Cardinals shot barely more than 30 percent from three as a team.

Smith isn't a guy who is going to take a boatload of threes in any given game, though he certainly can and has done so on occasion. Against the Wildcats, however, it wouldn't be the worst idea in the world for Smith to keep launching them from downtown.

The reason for this is twofold. One, the Cardinals are going to need as many points as they can possibly get to defeat Kentucky. And two, having Smith take shots from beyond the arc will limit Anthony Davis' impact in this game. He's an elite shot-blocker, but he's not going to venture far enough away from the paint to block any three-point attempts.

If Smith gets hot from distance, the Cardinals stand a very good chance of hanging with the Wildcats long enough to beat them.

Gorgui Dieng

Everyone knows that Anthony Davis is an outstanding shot-blocker and an elite defensive player. You can rest assured that the broadcast team covering Saturday's game will drive those points home again and again and again.

But hey, Gorgui Dieng is pretty good in his own right. He averaged just over three blocks per game in the regular season, and he tended to pick them up in bunches.

Case in point, you can look back at Louisville's loss to Kentucky in January. Dieng had six blocks in that game. The game after that, he had seven. He had seven again in the Sweet 16 against Michigan State.

Dieng is going to need to be at his very best again against Kentucky. The Wildcats are going to try to attack the basket, and Dieng needs to be there to turn them away just like he was in the first meeting between these two teams.

If Dieng holds his ground, Kentucky will have to settle for more and more jump shots, and that's what Louisville should want.

Peyton Siva

Peyton Siva is a guy who I don't consider to be a great offensive player. His offensive arsenal is very limited, and you're generally only going to see him make a handful of buckets in a given game.

What Siva can do, however, is run Louisville's offense, such as it is. He's a guy who knows how to create in transition, and he knows how to move in and out of a defense in the halfcourt. When he's at his best, he's dishing out assists left and right, in large part because he's very good at getting the defense to focus on him.

The numbers don't really tell the whole story when it comes to Siva. He averaged 5.5 assists per game in the regular season and he'll have games here and there with just three or four assists, but this is because Siva can't help the fact that he's not surrounded by great shooters and offensive playmakers. He does what he can with what he has.

To that end, Siva needs to continue being himself against Kentucky. But since he can't trust his teammates to put the ball in the basket after he delivers it to them, Siva should be more assertive than usual in this game. Even if he doesn't put the ball in the basket, he might be able to get some Kentucky players in foul trouble if he goes right at them with the ball in his possession. 

If Siva has a great game and various other stars align in Louisville's favor, the Cardinals are going to win this game.