The Louisville Cardinals are set to face the Kentucky Wildcats in the Final Four of the 2012 NCAA Tournament and the winner will face the winner of the Ohio State-Kansas game. Of the four teams that have made it to this point, the Cardinals are the lowest seed (No. 4) and are likely considered the underdogs, especially since they're playing No. 1 seeded Kentucky. However, they have knocked some tough competition out of the tournament, including No. 1 seeded Michigan State.
Junior Peyton Siva, a Seattle native and one of the Cardinals' starting guards, has been one of the main reasons for the team's success throughout the season. However, his production, at least when it comes to scoring, has tailed off throughout the tournament.
The Seattle native started the tournament off with a bang, scoring 17 points in the team's first game against the No. 13 seeded Davidson Wildcats. However, since then, Siva has not scored more than nine points despite playing more minutes in each game.
In the Cardinals' second game, against the No. 5 seeded New Mexico Lobos, Siva only managed to score six points, and then in the third game, he only scored four against the No. 1 seeded Spartans. He bounced back slightly in the team's next game, scoring nine against the Florida Gators.
It seems that as the competition got tougher, Siva scored less and less, and if that's the case, he may struggle against the Wildcats, who are favored to win the tournament. If the Cardinals are going to advance to the championship game, Silva will have to bounce back from three mediocre performances and put up some more points to help his team defeat the 20th-ranked scoring team in the NCAA.
For more on the Cardinals head to Card Chronicle, for more on the Wildcats, head to A Sea of Blue, and for more college basketball than you can handle, head to SB Nation's NCAA Basketball Hub.
