LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — I wrote and deleted this sentence three times before I left it at the top of this column:
Notre Dame was a Must Win for the University of Louisville men’s basketball team Wednesday night at the KFC Yum! Center.
"We expected to win this game," Louisville center Brandon Huntley-Hatfield said.
Of course. The Las Vegas oddsmakers agreed. So did the analytics formulas. It was a Must Win.
Ridiculous, right? Wildly dramatic, right? Reaching for an angle, right?
There are no Must Wins for an 8-18 team, right?
Wrong.
"We got blasted," Huntley-Hatfield said.
Louisville lost a Must Win game to Notre Dame.
Lost it badly, 72-50.
It was the kind of loss that inspired another round of questions about whether U of L coach Kenny Payne is worried about keeping his job or whether he continues to believe he can turn around a program which is now guaranteed back-to-back 20-loss seasons.
"I'm not worried about my job security," Payne said. "I'm only worried about getting my guys to play better. My mentality is that I want to win every day."
Can he get them to play better -- over four more regular-season games and a trip to the ACC Tournament in Washington D.C.? The Cards are 8-19, 3-13 in league play.
"These are young people and anything is possible," Payne said. "We work really hard and we believe in what we do.
"We're not perfect. But I think these kids care about being good basketball players. I think they care about the city. I think they care about the university."
With four of its final five regular-season games booked for Second and Main Streets, the Cards needed a big finish. The Cards delivered a big flop.
"Today there were players, multiple players that were lethargic, behind," Payne said. "That's a concern."
Lost it on a night when the Cards never led. Lost it on a night when they were buried by 12 Notre Dame three-pointers.
Impossible to put any lipstick on this one. Can’t lose a home game by 22 to one of the worst teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
"The reaction isn't really pleasant," Huntley-Hatfield said. "We've got to go back to the drawing board as a team and fix it. We have a week to prepare for Duke so we're going to turn our focus to that."
Lost it on a night when Notre Dame coach Micah Shrewsberry emptied his bench with 2 minutes and 37 seconds to play. Every player on the Notre Dame roster played, including the walk-ons.
Lost it on a night when they cut the Notre Dame lead to 53-45 midway through the second half and then watched Irish freshman guard Braeden Shrewsberry bury them with back-to-back three-pointers, his fifth and sixth of the game.
"I think we relaxed," Payne said. "They run a lot of movement before he comes off a screen."
Shrewsberry finished with 7 shots from distance in 11 attempts for 23 points after going 8 for 22 from distance and scoring a combined 28 points in the last three Notre Dame games.
Lost it on a night when they got only 3 points from their bench. Subtract Skyy Clark's 18 points on 7 for 8 shooting and Huntley-Hatfield's 16 points on 7 for 16 shooting.
The rest of Payne's team contributed 16 points while making 5 of 32 shots -- 15.6%.
Notre Dame came to town with 9 wins in 25 games. Notre Dame had 4 wins in its first 14 ACC games.
Notre Dame has a first-year coach, Micah Shrewsberry, who is less than a year into a complete teardown of the Fighting Irish program. He’s switching Notre Dame from the offensive-oriented style of Mike Brey to a system that stresses defense and shot selection. He's a disciple of former Butler and Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens as well as Purdue's Matt Painter. It shows.
Louisville has a young team. Notre Dame has a younger team. Much younger. Shrewsberry started a lineup of three freshmen and two sophomores.
Shouldn’t lose to Notre Dame.
On Dec. 19 after Notre Dame lost a home game to The Citadel by 20 points, Shrewsberry blasted his team after the game, telling them he would help them work their way through the transfer portal if they weren't comfortable with his coaching.
The Irish, for the record, have won their last three ACC games and have victories over Virginia and Virginia Tech.
"(My players) kept showing up with joy, energy and passion," Shrewsberry said. "That's how I knew we were headed in the right direction."
But as much as the Irish have improved, especially on defense, where they now rank in the Top 30 nationally in defensive efficiency, Louisville should not lose to this group by 22 at home.
It happened. It happened without a reasonable doubt.
"No one likes losing but we expected to win this game," Huntley-Hatfield said. "And then they just blew it open in the second half, hitting a lot of threes and stuff like that."
Louisville will have the weekend off to ponder the path forward.
The Cards’ next game is next Wednesday at Duke. The Blue Devils sit behind North Carolina in second place in the ACC. Duke won at Louisville, 83-69, on Jan. 23.
"I've been doing this a long time so for me it's a no-brainer, it's going to get done," Payne said. "But I need (the players) to believe it. It doesn't matter what I believe. I need my players to believe."
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