SMU Mustangs vs Louisville Cardinals Prediction, Odds and Picks for Today, 03/11/26

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The ACC Tournament continues on Wednesday with 4 second round games, including a rubber match between the SMU Mustangs and Louisville Cardinals at 2:30 PM ET on ESPN after each team earned a win on their home floor during the regular season. SMU opened ACC Tournament play with a convincing 86-69 win over Syracuse on Tuesday, really running away with the game in the second half despite the continued absence of BJ Edwards. Meanwhile, Louisville will play this game without freshman star Mikel Brown Jr., who was announced out for the ACC Tournament on Tuesday. Brown hasn’t played since the loss to Clemson, in which he logged just 21 minutes, but the Cardinals have been fine without him in the short term, ending the season with a big win at Miami thanks to a 50% (12/24) shooting performance. 

Can the Cards keep up their winning ways without their point guard on Wednesday? It’s possible, but Brown played an integral part in both contests with SMU this year. In the first meeting, he dropped 20 points along with 4 assists in 29 minutes, and followed that up with a 29-point performance with 4 more assists in 35 minutes in the second meeting. Louisville has elite shooters in Ryan Conwell, J’Vonne Hadley and Isaac McKneely to fill some of the void left by Brown in a tournament setting, but picking up 49 points worth of slack seems daunting. Don’t get me wrong, Edwards’ absence is a big deal in its own right, but his impact on SMU is not as quite as vast as Brown’s on Louisville. Plus, Edwards is not completely ruled out yet; he’s currently questionable per coach Andy Enfield and a local SMU beat reporter – both of whom made it sound like he was likely to return later in the week if SMU were to advance.

SMU’s body of work to end the season wasn’t very attractive, but I’m not interested in laying more than 2 possessions with Louisville against an SMU offense that leads the ACC in three-point percentage (40.3%), can catch fire just as easily as the Cards and already has a game on this floor under its belt. Louisville’s win at Miami without Brown was impressive, but again, it took making 50% of their threes. Outside of that win, their only other victories without Brown were over Syracuse, Pitt, Boston College, Cal and Montana. 

Per EvanMiya, the Mustangs are top-5 in Pace Adjust, which means SMU plays better than their baseline in uptempo games. That bodes well for the Mustangs on Wednesday considering Louisville is a top-50 team in adjusted tempo. SMU has the horses to keep up with Louisville offensively, so I’m grabbing the points with the underdog in this ACC Tournament matchup. 

SMU vs Louisville Cardinals: SMU Mustangs +6.5 (-110) at the time of publishing. Playable to +6. 

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