Here are our 3-pointers for Saturday's Louisville-Virginia Tech game on CBS, brought to you by American Cancer Society / Coaches vs. Cancer.

Welcome to Bubble Season.

And here on the NCAA Tournament bubble sits Louisville. You may have been paying more attention lately to stories about Louisville's past (i.e., the NCAA rejecting its appeal and stripping the school of its 2013 national title), but Louisville's present is feeling pretty tenuous.

Louisville currently sits at 18-10, 49th in RPI and 38th in KenPom. The Cardinals are one of the teams in Jerry Palm's first four out of the NCAA Tournament. It has zero wins against teams ranked in the top 25 in RPI (but seven losses), and only two wins against teams ranked 26-50 (but three losses).

As for Virginia Tech? I'm not sure if you'd say it is  a lock just yet, but the Hokies are pretty darn close. Palm has them as a comfortable No. 7 seed in his latest bracket; even though its RPI is only two slots higher than Louisville, Virginia Tech has three wins against top-10 RPI teams, including a monumental road win a couple weeks ago against the No. 1 ranked team, Virginia.

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Here are three things you need to know about Louisville's visit to Virginia Tech (1 p.m. ET Saturday on CBS).

  1. You can't stop just one guy on Virginia Tech. The Hokies might have the most balanced offense in the nation. Five Hokies average 11 points or more per game, but nobody averages more than 14. This is a very efficient offensive team that shares the ball very well; Virginia Tech's effective field-goal percentage ranks eighth in the nation. You can try to hone in on point guard Justin Robinson, who has the team's highest usage rate, but he's also got his team's highest assist rate. This offense can kill you in a lot of different ways.

  2. Good luck getting to the rim against Louisville. Senior big man Anas Mahmoud is one of the best deniers in college hoops and has been the past two seasons. If you're wondering why teams can't score on Louisville at the rim (teams shoot only 44.5 percent from 2-point range against Louisville, which is the twelfth-best rate for a defense in the country), it's because Mahmoud is always standing there with his long arms and excellent timing. He ranks 14th in the nation in block percentage. There isn't much particularly special about this Louisville team, but Mahmoud's skill at the rim is one of them.

  3. Louisville needs this! Like, really needs this. Not just as an emotional boost after a painful week on campus, where the school became the first school in men's Division I basketball history to have to tear down a national championship banner. But also because, if Louisville can't win at Virginia Tech, it will have increasingly few chances at marquee wins – Quadrant 1 wins – if it wants to impress the NCAA Tournament selection committee. After Saturday's game, Louisville will have Virginia at home. That would be the type of great win that could lock up Louisville's bid – but good luck upsetting a Virginia team with a historically great defense. And then Louisville has NC State on the road, another team that's also sitting near the bubble and will be just as hungry. It's hard to overstate the importance of Saturday's game for Louisville's NCAA Tournament chances.

How to watch Louisville at Virginia Tech

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