LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The hamburgers worked. And more importantly, Louisville basketball is working again.
They asked Khani Rooths how he bulked back up after an illness that had hollowed him out for four games, and the Louisville forward didn't reach for some nutritionist-approved answer about protein shakes and lean chicken breast.
"I definitely ate several hamburgers," at the suggestion of coach Pat Kelsey, he said. "You know, I like hamburgers anyway, so getting it back."
Somewhere in America, a strength coach is having an aneurysm, but Rooths is laughing about it while averaging 12.3 points and shooting 54% since his return.
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Here's what the Cardinals learned during Rooths' absence with an undisclosed illness: You don't always know what you have till it's gone, and what they had was a player who brought size, athleticism and desperate energy all the time.
With Rooths out of the lineup, you had smaller guys playing the three and four, which is like asking your sports car to pull a trailer. It'll do it, but that's not what you bought it for.
Especially against Duke.
Their record without Rooths was 2-2, which sounds fine until you realize the wins came against Pittsburgh (by 41 points, so congrats on showing up) and Virginia Tech. The losses? A 31-point blowout to Duke on the road and to Virginia at home, both ranked, both games where Louisville needed exactly what it didn't have.
"We missed him," teammate Mikel Brown Jr. said after Rooths' first game back, and you could tell he meant it. "Just that energy that he brings off the bench, that fire, the intensity, the grit and just the will to want to guard and play hard."
You hear coaches talk about "energy guys" all the time, usually as a euphemism for "can't shoot but runs around a lot." But Rooths is the real thing, the kind of player who changes what the other team has to worry about just by being on the floor.
That athleticism — the kind that once had him figure skating (and drawing the attention of hockey teams) as a kid in Washington, D.C., before his mother scared him straight with stories about hockey players losing teeth ("I like my teeth too much," he said) — is what Louisville couldn't replace during his absence.
He posted double-doubles his first two games back, and his 12 rebounds against Notre Dame in his second game back were a career high. He's also averaging 21 minutes a game off the bench since his return, up from just over 17 minutes a game before his illness.
Rooths is shooting 67.8 percent from two-point range, a rate that begs for more interior looks (particularly since he’s at 19.8 percent from three). His ability to score inside and on put-backs creates offensive opportunities for everybody.
"It takes some shine off of the guards that the defense has to focus on a lot," Rooths said after the Wake Forest game. "So it takes some pressure off them, and it's just me helping being there."
In Louisville's 88-80 win at Wake Forest, he was part of the key defensive sequence late. He got rebounds. He got a block. He got a stop. Six Cardinals scored in double figures, which is what happens when the defense can't load up on your guards because they have to keep an eye on Rooths flashing to the basket or crashing the offensive glass.
Rooths doesn't see himself as doing anything special. He says his fellow bigs have always been good passers, he's just moving more and being more active to get the ball. He thinks the hot start against Wake Forest had no secret — "We just playing hard." He thinks the defensive turnaround against SMU was simple: "We just had to wake up."
Maybe. Or maybe what Louisville really needed was for Rooths to heal up, bulk up, and get back on the floor.
"As soon as they said I was cleared to work out, I did as much as I could and did extra," he said. "I was trying to come out here and show y'all that it ain't no lag — you're seeing the same Khani, even better."
Better or not, he's back. Which means Ryan Conwell can go back to being a shooting guard. Which means Louisville has its energy source again. Which means the energy, as Mikel Brown said, can be contagious.
Louisville will need every bit of that against North Carolina State on Monday night. The Wolfpack have won six straight in ACC play, rank No. 7 in the nation in three-point shooting, and are coached by Will Wade, who knows a thing or two about winning games as an underdog.
Tip-off is 7 p.m. at the KFC Yum! Center. White-out game.
Rooths expects to bring the energy. Hamburgers or not.
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