LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — You’d need 1,000,001 fingers to point at every issue that has dragged the University of Louisville men’s basketball team to the bottom of the Atlantic Coast Conference standings.
Defense. Shooting. Turnovers. Rebounding. Slow starts. Injuries. Effort. Attention to detail. Following the scouting report. Focus.
Kenny Payne has a long list of issues to fix — and not much time or good will remaining in the bank with Louisville fans to do it.
As the season tilted into 2024, U of L athletic director Josh Heird said Payne and his team had to make more successful deposits and eliminate the ugly withdrawals.
The Cardinals (6-12, 1-6 in the ACC) made one major deposit by winning at Miami Jan. 10.
They suffered a harsh withdrawal when Wake Forest buried 18 three-point shots in a 25-point Demon Deacons’ victory last Saturday in Winston-Salem, N.C. Louisville was outscored by 48 points from distance.
Louisville’s Mike James drives for a basket in a loss to Pitt on Jan. 6, 2023 in the KFC Yum! Center.
Now the Cardinals return to the KFC Yum! Center for a pair of home games this week — Tuesday at 7 p.m. against Duke (which lost at home to Pitt Saturday night) and Saturday at noon against Virginia (which has lost three of its four ACC road games).
What needs to change for the Cardinals to rise off the bottom of the league standings?
Two things: Take advantage of playing at home as the schedule begins to soften and turning up the defensive resistance to a level where the Cardinals are at least mildly annoying.
The schedule has done the Cardinals no favors this season. According to the metrics at Ken Pomeroy’s analytics site, Louisville opened with the ACC’s toughest in-league schedule.
They played a road game against the league’s best team (North Carolina) as well as another road game against a team (Wake Forest) tied for second place. They lost a home game North Carolina State, which is locked in that three-way tie for second with Wake and Florida State.
At 1-6, Louisville has played two home games and five road games.
That is the fewest home games of any ACC team. Eight ACC teams have played at home four times.
That is the most road games of any ACC team. Nine ACC teams have played on the road three times.
By season’s end, the numbers will balance. Notre Dame, Georgia Tech and Boston College will show up on the schedule and the Cards will have to take advantage.
But if Louisville continues to defend with the same urgency and commitment the Cardinals have shown in most of their first seven ACC games, it won’t matter if the games are played in Louisville’s practice facility or on Pluto.
In league play, Louisville has allowed an absurd 119.2 points per 100 possessions. The goal is to keep that number close to 100 points per 100 possessions.
According to Pomeroy, Georgia Tech is next to last in that category at 116.3. Six ACC teams have kept their average to 101.4 or lower.
The Cards were last in the ACC in defensive efficiency last season, too. But their efficiency has slipped from 115.8 to 119.2. Not an encouraging trend. ACC opponents have made nearly 40% of their three-point field goal attempts. That’s also an increase from 36.5% last season.
There are 13 ACC regular-season games and the league tournament remaining. I asked Payne what he and the team can do to fix things — starting this week with the Duke and Virginia home games.
“One is transition (defense),” Payne said. “Making sure that we get back, build a wall and don't give up easy layups and easy threes in transition. I think that's vital. That starts everything.
“Some of that probably could be attributed to turnovers or bad shots. (Or) relaxing. We score. They come back down and they get a wide open three.
“Two, I think defensively the communication part for me is the big one, along with the transition. There are the times on the court when two guys are coming together and they should talk out a switch or if they’re going to stay.
“Neither one of them is saying anything to the other. And they're going with one man leaving the other guy open. That's a problem.
“We've been working on it from day one, but we have to get better at that. And I have a bunch of guys that are young. And the hardest thing to do in this game is communicate, to talk, especially if in your DNA has always been to be a quiet kid.
“You got to get out of that and be able to communicate to your teammates loudly and early so that we can react.
“If we could just clear it up those two things, transition and talking to each other. We will be a lot better defensively.”
The clean up needs to begin on Aisle One Tuesday night.
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