Louisville earned a hard-fought win in the first round against a really good South Florida team, and it did so without one of its star players, Mikel Brown Jr., putting Michigan State on notice.
The talented freshman guard who missed the first-round matchup is one of two Cardinals who average over 18 points per game, and he looks like one of the best first-year players in the country. He missed the first-round game against South Florida, and it was reported prior to the USF game that he would probably miss the entire weekend.
About 24 hours before the second-round matchup, Brown Jr. confirmed that he would, in fact, be missing Saturday afternoon’s game against the Spartans.
Louisville PG Mikel Brown Jr. tells me he is not playing vs. Michigan State tomorrow.
— Connor Earegood (@ConnorEaregood) March 20, 2026
The Spartans are going to now have a major advantage as that means that it’s one less really good player for Tom Izzo to have to game-plan for.
Now that it’s confirmed that he’s out, Izzo can focus on trying to stop Ryan Conwell who leads Louisville in scoring with 18.7 points per game. Izzo can now worry about slowing Conwell, Isaac McKneely, and J’Vonne Hadley down. This greatly helps the Spartans out with their perimeter defense, but McKneely showed that he can shoulder that 3-point load, hitting 7-of-10 against USF.
Not having Brown Jr. definitely puts a slight damper on Louisville’s upset hopes.
Tom Izzo knows that anything can happen in March
If anyone knows that anything can happen in the month of March, it’s Izzo. He’s been on the right side of buzzer-beaters, unthinkable upsets, and legendary performances, but he’s also been on the wrong side of all of those — we don’t even need to mention Middle Tennessee.
The 2018 NCAA Tournament comes to mind when I think about one of the most disappointing March losses under Izzo in his career. His third-seeded Spartans were loaded and won their first-round game before facing a second-round battle with Syracuse at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. The zone defense in that game led to an early exit with one of the most loaded MSU teams ever.
While Louisville may be without a key player who averages nearly 20 points per game, that doesn’t mean that the Cardinals are going to just lay down.
McKneely hit seven threes in the opening-round win over one of the most popular upset picks in the entire bracket. Louisville won shorthanded against a team that was picked heavily to pull off the upset. The Cardinals aren’t going to roll over for Izzo and the Spartans.
No one will be taking this matchup lightly on Saturday.