Louisville Basketball: Top 3 non-conference opponents in 2023-24 schedule
By Caleb Hall
3. UMBC Retrievers, November 6th, 2023
Louisville will face UMBC to start their 2023-24 campaign, and the first game of the season will always be one of the most important games of the non-conference schedule. UMBC is most widely known for taking down the 1 seeded Virginia Cavaliers in the 2018 NCAA tournament, in what was at the time, the biggest upset in NCAA tournament history. It was the very first time that a 16 seed beat a 1 seed in the tournament.
However, they have been just a middle of the road team in their conference since that appearance. They are apart of the America East conference and seem to fall in the middle or in the top 1/3 of the conference. It is usually dominated by Vermont and that team is the one that makes the tournament out of all the teams in this conference usually.
Louisville should NOT take this matchup for granted for many reasons. They lost 3 straight games against mid major teams to start the season last year (Bellarmine, Wright State, and Appalachian State). Bellarmine spoiled Kenny Payne’s coming home party last season as the Cardinals lost 67-66. This is something that Payne and his team needs to avoid this coming season. The Cardinals need to grab as many wins as they can before they start conference play next season as the ACC is a tough power 5 conference and will play teams like Kentucky and Texas as early as mid November.
UMBC did not play much high competition last year and the best teams they played they lost to. They lost to Princeton 64-94, Georgetown 70-79, and Maryland 64-80. Louisville played Maryland and lost by 25 and Princeton made it to the sweet 16 last season. When it comes to good teams, UMBC seems to not be close to competing but neither does Louisville. At least according to last season.
Louisville needs to start off the season right and defeating UMBC and starting 1-0 would be a perfect start for Kenny Payne and the Cardinals in the 2023-24 season.