College Basketball Betting: Louisville vs. Notre Dame

Another hot game tonight that has Gambling911.com readers licking their chops and anxious to place their bets.

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are desperate to stop a losing streak tonight as they host the tough Louisville Cardinals.

Sportsbook.com college basketball betting odds have Louisville as three-point favorites. The game starts at 7 pm ET.

At the turn of the New Year, Louisville was 8-3 and struggling to live up to its preseason hype, with coach Rick Pitino calling out players and benching others after losing two of their last three contests.

At the same date, Notre Dame was 10-2, ranked in the Top 12 and looking forward to the rest of the year fresh off a road win at DePaul. For these two clubs with veteran leadership, the paths they took since then could not be more different.

Louisville (18-4, 13-9 ATS) has just one loss since flipping the calendar and that was to top-ranked Connecticut, hardly a disgrace. The Cardinals are 10-1 with seven covers and have bottled up more than one team with their defensive pressure.

Terrence Williams is the best player on the floor most nights, making shots and creating steals, along with a solid floor game. Earl Clark and center Samardo Samuels are enigmatic on occasion, but are solid players regardless.

Louisville is 10-2 ATS off a road win by 10 points or more and has covered 14 of their last 16 road games.

Though is seemed innocuous at the time, the 82 points Notre Dame (12-10, 5-12 ATS) allowed in the win over the Blue Demons was a harbinger of things to come.

DePaul has yet to win a game in the Big East and they have only gotten as high as 70 points in one other league contest. Notre Dame is allowing 80.5 points per game in Big East action, which is the seventh highest figure of any team in a conference.

That kind of defense won't work in many situations, and facing your seventh ranked team in eight games only makes the problem worse. The Irish have lost their fight and are 2-8 ATS against teams outscoring their opponents by 12 or more points a game.

The Cards already have an 87-73 overtime win over Notre Dame and are 10-1 ATS as a road favorite or pick. The Irish will be looking to avoid their first eight game losing streak in 44 years and are 3-11 ATS as an underdog over the last two seasons.

StatFox Power Line - Louisville by 3  Bet it now at Sportsbook.com

Carrie Stroup, Gambling911.com Senior Reporter