LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Former University of Louisville basketball men's players saw what you saw if you watched the Cardinals flounder to a 64-52 loss at Virginia Monday night:
A team that huffed and puffed to put up stall-ball offensive numbers with its allegedly new and improved high tech style of play.
A performance that made the former players make the same gesture that the head coach was shown making on the bench at Virginia — cover their eyes.
A result that had the stats geeks scrambling through the record book to find the latest marker of how dramatically Louisville basketball has tumbled.
On Tuesday evening, as the speculation percolated that the end of the Chris Mack Era was near, I talked to five former Louisville players from the Rick Pitino, Denny Crum and John Dromo eras.
I gave all five anonymity to encourage them to speak their minds. All five found different ways to say the same thing:
It’s time for a change of direction for Louisville basketball. Chris Mack’s way of doing things is not working.
(That change could come Wednesday. U of L scheduled a joint meeting of its board of trustees as well as its athletics board at 4 p.m. at the University Club on campus. Attendance will be in person or by teleconference. A source close to the university told me the subject of the meeting was "the basketball program.")
“This is a real mess,” said one former Cardinal with a national championship ring. “This team is so broken. There’s not one player on this team that would play major minutes on our best teams in the 80s.”
“It’s frightening how far this thing has fallen,” said another former Card who is a member of Louisville’s 1,000-point club. “It’s going to take three to five years to get it back.”
“I didn’t think it was a good fit from the beginning,” a third former player said. “He didn’t have the personality to follow two Hall of Fame coaches like Coach Crum and Coach Pitino.
“He’s never coached at this level before. Louisville basketball isn’t Xavier basketball (Mack’s home as the head coach for nine seasons before he came to Louisville in 2018). He had to coach and recruit at a different level than he was accustomed to — and the results have shown.”
Check. Check. Likely checkmate.
The Cards’ loss at Virginia Monday night dropped this team to 11-9, the program’s worst record after 20 games in more than two decades. Louisville has been beaten by Western Kentucky, DePaul and Pittsburgh — three teams with sub-100 computer rankings.
The Cards have lost four games at the KFC Yum! Center, which has been less than half full for many home games.
Last Saturday was supposed to be one day of celebration as well as a reprieve from misery. Louisville retired the uniform number of Russ Smith, one of the program’s most beloved and entertaining players.
The Cards were booed as they left the floor following a come-from-ahead 12-point loss to Notre Dame.
After the game, the pressure was cranked to next-level volume when senior center Malik Williams paused roughly 8.3 seconds before he answered a question about whether the Louisville players had tuned out their head coach.
“I don’t have a comment for that,” Williams said.
Call me Old School. I remember when the signature quotes from Louisville basketball players were something like “The ‘Ville is going to The Nap,” (Poncho Wright, 1980 NCAA champs) or that Drexel was “one of those academic schools,” (Milt Wagner, 1986 NCAA champs).
“That was shocking to watch,” one former player who knows Williams said. “Malik’s not the kind of kid you expect to say something like that. That was the ultimate red flag."
Another former player who knows Williams agreed. But he considered it further evidence of locker room frustrations with losing while tuning out the voice of the head coach.
In six games when Mack was suspended in November, Louisville went 5-1 for assistant coach Mike Pegues. The Cards’ victories over Mississippi State and Maryland were two of their best three wins this season.
In the 14 games since Mack returned, the Cards have gone 6-8, falling completely out of discussion for the 2022 NCAA Tournament in a down year for the Atlantic Coast Conference. Even Mack said that he was searching for the right message to motivate his guys.
“It’s just not Louisville basketball,” one former player said.
“He’s a walk-it-up-the-floor, control everything coach and this is a program that built it reputation on playing a faster more, entertaining style.
“He said he was going to change that this season when he brought in the new assistant coach (Ross McMains) but I think he was forced into that.
“And that new, modern style had to score a basket at the end of the game to get to 50 points against Virginia. That’s not Louisville basketball.”
“It’s just a real downer,” another player said. “It’s time to give Louisville fans hope again.”
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