Louisville vs Mississippi State 3/30/18 - NCAAW Picks & Predictions

On Friday, the Louisville Cardinals (36-2) will play the Mississippi State Bulldogs (36-1) in the Final Four of the Women’s NCAA Tournament in a battle of top seeds from Columbus, Ohio with the winner moving on to the National Championship game. The Cardinals routed the Oregon State Beavers 75-43 in the Lexington Region final on Sunday. Asia Durr led the Cardinals with 18 points, while Myisha Hines-Allen chipped in with 16 points.

Mississippi State punched it ticket to the Final Four with an 89-73 win over UCLA. Teaira McCowan led the Bulldogs with 23 points and 21 boards, while Victoria Vivians scored 24. Mississippi State was also the top seed in its region. The top player for Louisville is Asia Durr. The ACC Player of the Year is averaging 18.7 point per game and is shooting 44.6% from the field. Although she went a full eight minutes without a point during the regional semifinals versus Stanford, Durr still finished with 24 points. She has scored as many as 47 points earlier this season against Ohio State. Louisville is averaging 77.1 points per game, which is 30th in the nation. Six-foot-three junior Sam Fuehring is the team’s best defender. She has also become very strong offensively during the tournament with a pair of double-doubles and has averaged 14 points per game compared to an average during the regular season of 9.6 per game.

Mississippi State’s key player is Victoria Vivians, who is shooting 41.4% from 3-point territory and has an overall field goal percentage of 48.2%. Moving Vivians to power forward when the team spread out its offense has helped both the team and Vivians as they are now hard to stop on the offense end. Morgan William averaged only 7.5 points per game through 34 games, but in her last three has averaged 15.7 per game. Mississippi State is 10th in the nation in scoring averaging 82.0 points per game.