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Jay Bilas gets to call the best basketball games all season long. He is clearly one of the most respected analysts in the game. So when he speaks, it carries some weight. Bilas had some good things to say (Courier-Journal) about the Louisville Cardinals, not only saying that they can win the ACC tournament, but also the “whole thing”.

“Well, they’re capable of winning the ACC tournament,” Bilas said. Then he expanded his thought to the NCAA tournament: “They can win the whole thing. They’re good enough to win the whole thing.”

“Earlier in the year when I watched them, I wasn’t confident that they would be a great offensive team, that they could really score,” Bilas said, “and they were subject early on to some pretty significant scoring droughts, like the (66-63 loss to) Baylor. They’ve had times where scoring was an issue.

“They can stop people, but I don’t care how good your defense is – and their defense is great – great defense doesn’t always stop offense. There are some really good offensive players out there that it’s hard to keep teams from scoring, and they get hot, and you’ve got to be able to score yourself. But they’ve really improved over the last month, month and a half on the offensive end.”