LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- For the third straight time, Louisville led Duke at halftime. And for the third straight time, the Blue Devils flipped the script like they wrote it themselves.
Three meetings, three halftime leads, three losses, each by 11 points.
The latest, an 84-73 Duke comeback win in the KFC Yum! Center, might sting more than most. This one had fans on their feet, a Top 10 team on the ropes, and a 47-38 lead that felt like momentum wearing red.
Then came the second half. And the punch.
"They took it right to us," coach Pat Kelsey said. "They punched us in the mouth, and when true adversity hit, we didn't respond."
A tale of two halves. A theme of two seasons.
Louisville's offense, which hummed for 20 minutes, broke apart like a party piñata. The Cardinals shot 2-of-17 from 3 after halftime. They turned the ball over eight times. They scored 26 points.
Duke, meanwhile, shot 71% in the second half, scored 46, and parked themselves in the paint like it was a public lot.
It's not the shooting drought that should concern Kelsey. Those come and go. (Though there is a recurring problem of what to do offensively when the threes stop falling.) What doesn't leave is the lack of stops. Louisville has now allowed more than 1.2 points per possession in all four of its losses, and more than one point per possession in every game against a Power 5 opponent.
You can't live like that. Not in the ACC. Not with the kind of hopes this team brought into the season.
Kelsey didn't dodge that.
"We probably should have changed our coverage more," he said. "We didn't execute the one we were in very well."
The middle pick-and-roll has become Louisville's recurring nightmare. Caleb Foster had 16 second-half points, slicing the lane like like a Christmas ham. He went by guys like he was on the interstate. When he wasn't scoring, Cameron Boozer (27 points) and Isaiah Evans (20) were.
It wasn't scheme, Louisville players insisted. It was poor execution. Mistimed help. Defensive rotations that arrived like dial-up internet.
"We needed to get more stops and guard the ball better," Louisville's Ryan Conwell said. "They weren't doing any crazy actions. It was just a ball screen in the middle. We just have to guard the ball. They were just getting downhill at will. We just have to be better."
"Just got to take it personal," Aly Khalifa chimed in. "Defense is everything, man. That's what's going to take us far."
Or derail the season. But Kelsey did not seem to have the levers to pull on that middle action. Hedge. Trap. Zone (a four-letter word that fans love, but no real improvement if the ability to guard the ball doesn't improve.) Sit someone down and try someone else.
Instead, they watched the same movie they've seen before, just with a shinier villain and a louder crowd.
A key absence
Mikel Brown Jr. watches the action during Louisville's 84-73 loss to Duke in the KFC Yum! Center.
Mikel Brown, the freshman point guard and most valuable floor organizer, watched it all in a back brace.
He's been battling spasms and setbacks, and while Kelsey insists there are "no excuses," there's no hiding from the truth: this team is not the same without Brown. He stabilizes the offense. He pressures the ball. He doesn't erase your flaws, but he puts some makeup on them.
And all of this noise that he doesn't want to play badly enough, or should be playing through injury, is misguided. He's been a guy who has played his whole career. He's a serious basketball player. If he could play, he'd play. Back injuries are tricky. Anyone who has had one can tell you.
Watch his games against Indiana and Memphis and you'll see him take shot after shot, many uncalled by officials. He didn't shy away from any of that.
On offense, another Plan B misfire
Louisville, too, has an issue on offense when the threes aren't falling. The Cards did try to work inside against Duke. Conwell drove. Isaac McKneely drove. Adrian Wooley went in there. What we didn't see in the second half much was Khani Rooths, who missed all of his three-pointers. He's one of the best paint and post scorers on the team, and may be an answer to the need for rim points. J'Vonne Hadley can provide help, too.
But it is increasingly evident, against the best teams in the country, a lot of those guys still have some things to prove when it comes to driving and scoring. Louisville is a drive-and-dish team. But when a team like Duke loads up the dishes in its Bosch, what next?
Offensively, Khalifa gave Louisville a first-half boost — five threes and 17 points — but he's a spark plug, not a steering wheel. And when the rhythm vanished in the second half, so did his touches.
"There wasn't a lot of ball movement," Kelsey said. "Our screening actions weren't physical. We weren't able to get in a rhythm."
The ball stuck. The defense sagged. And the opportunity slipped away.
"A crucial, crucial point"
Which brings us back to what Kelsey said afterward.
"I really think this is a crucial, crucial point of our season," he said. "It's as much adversity as we faced since we came together on June 5, the cohesiveness of our team, not splintering, sticking together, staying with the process, and having a couple great days of preparation. So really, really important couple days."
Louisville players afterwards said the right things. In the locker room and on the podium.
"At the end of the day, defense comes down to effort, you know, and just being disciplined," Conwell said. "We can have the best scheme in the world, but if nobody's running around and giving the maximum effort, I mean, this scheme is not going to matter."
A look at Louisville's schedule shows a long list of games in which it should be favored. They'll get a rematch at Duke later this month, and will face Baylor, North Carolina, Virginia, Clemson and others.
It's not too late. Not for this team, this season, or this coach.
But as Kelsey himself said, the road has narrowed. He called it a crucial moment for this team and staff, having lost three out of four to power conference opponents.
I'd say he's right.
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