LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – The University of Louisville basketball men's basketball team lost its fourth straight game Tuesday night, falling to North Carolina 90-83 in overtime. It's the program's first 4-game losing streak since 2001, and its first 3-game home losing streak since 2004.
But all losses are not created equal.
At the end of the first game of this losing streak, a 12-point loss to Notre Dame, the Cardinals were booed off their home court. After Tuesday's loss, a remnant of fans stayed after, lined the stands heading into the tunnel where their dejected team was heading toward the locker room, and cheered.
As the seconds ticked down, interim coach Mike Pegues, who received a late-game technical foul for which he later apologized, looked over in the stands and individual fans were applauding him, telling him to keep going, that he'd coached a good game.
There are two parts to this story. Pegues is remaking the emotional health of this team. He removed team captain Malik Williams for at least one game, to re-establish a baseline standard for team comportment. He has players engaged again. They are competing. They care. As another Division I coach in Louisville, Scott Davenport, is fond of saying, "caring is a talent." This part of the story is improving.
The other part of the story, the basketball part, still has a ways to go, farther than it should need to go 22 games into a season, most of it spent under a coach who was making $4.25 million.
Both parts are important. But this much is certain, you can't make progress in the basketball unless the team is intellectually and emotionally checked in.
After Tuesday's game, Pegues expressed a sentiment that's pretty rare these days after such an intense and disappointing loss – gratitude.
"I will start by saying our kids, given the scope of everything that has transpired this week, I could not have been more proud after two losses," Pegues said. "On paper, we are 0-2 against Duke and Carolina, but in spirit, in heart and competitive spirit, in toughness and resilience, character and fight – I saw it all from our guys tonight. I saw it in the Duke game. I saw it even more tonight, even down a man. I am so proud of our guys. I am so proud and grateful to our fans – that atmosphere was raucous. That was unbelievable. The Yum has not sounded like that for our games the way it did against Duke and tonight than it has in a long time. I thank them for their support. I had fans over there yelling to me, 'Great job, Coach, great job'. I am a rookie at this and it means a lot to me. It means a lot from our fans that they showed up and supported us. . . . I am so proud of our team and the fight that they showed. We were down ten with twelve and a half minutes left in the second half. At times, when we have hit that level of adversity, this team has not responded that way. Tonight, they broke the pattern. I am proud of that. We need that to continue."
This is a team that badly wants to end its losing streak. Sometimes, perhaps, players want it too badly. North Carolina did everything it could to give Tuesday's game away. In a key second-half sequence, Louisville came down with a chance to build on a lead and reverted to one-on-one play, no ball movement, challenged shots.
Or, it tried to get scoring opportunities in transition. But this Louisville team, for whatever reason, is one of the worst transition teams in the country. It ranks No. 327 out of 358 teams in points per transition possession, and 18.9% of its possessions overall are transition possessions.
It's not a question of having players who can naturally lead the break or score at the rim or make good decisions going defense to offense, that's a question of practice, of drilling, of discipline and knowing where your scoring is going to come from.
Indiana is a Top 10 team in the nation in transition. WKU is a Top 25 team. Bellarmine, who you might not equate with a running style, is a Top 25 transition team in the country. Louisville scores on 41% of its transition possessions. Bellarmine scores on 55%.
That one area, a better organized, conceived and executed transition attack, would win games for Louisville. The Cardinals went 11 for 24 on layups Tuesday. Convert at the rim, transition or not, and you're not in overtime, regardless of the bad calls that went against you.
And there were bad calls. A pivotal foul call against Sydney Curry at the end of overtime was terrible. He was clotheslined, driven back, and the official called a foul on him. Pegues was incredulous, then incensed. When he saw the replay, he slammed the scorer's table so hard that he drew a technical foul that helped seal Louisville's fate.
No official will have to answer for anything. They never do. Coaches, however, do have to answer.
Earlier, Jae'Lyn Withers had drawn a technical for pushing a player down during a scrum after hard contact on a layup. It was a video review technical.
"I was told on Jae'Lyn's technical that he pushed a kid," Pegues said. "I was frustrated with the call because Jae'Lyn is not the kind of kid who is going to walk into a scrum and start something. I haven't seen the play, but I am pretty sure Jae'Lyn was just trying to discard the kid so he could get to his teammate. He is not that type of kid. They don't know our kids. They don't coach them every day. But I just feel like in a three-point game, that is a tough call to make. I know they have their rules and all. My technical was inexcusable. I am irate after the big scrum with Sydney that looked like, to me, like a clear foul on (Armando) Bacot. It went the other way. I was completely shocked by that. Nonetheless, I need to temper myself when things are seemingly something that I think it should be. I am responsible, in part, for why we lost tonight because I have to control my temper better. I apologized to my team and to our fan base for getting that tech. I am not going to sit here and blame the officials, that is something that is being taken care of by our administration. They are looking into those calls because those are two tough calls."
Louisville fans, I would guess, don't need an apology. In a first for a Louisville game that I've attended, debris was hurled onto the court after the Withers technical, forcing a delay.
Jarrod West quickly motioned to the crowd to stop, and was quick to gather his teammates to keep their heads in the game after Pegues' drew his technical.
There's no question, this is a team that is in the moment. Sometimes too much, but it is not disconnected, at least emotionally, not any longer.
Now it needs to play connected basketball. It needs better rotation on defense. It needs consistent ball movement, and less one-on-one, offensively. It needs to bear down and run offense, with set plays called from the bench if need be, in tight situations. It needs to stop wasting possessions.
It needs more of Curry, who played only 17 minutes Tuesday because of foul trouble, but not just because of that. El Ellis can take over a game at any moment, and is the reason Louisville was in position to win Tuesday's game. He scored 25 points in the second half and overtime, but he also needs to look to share the ball in big situations, and he needs to be more efficient.
Matt Cross played a fantastic all-around game Tuesday, with 13 points, 15 rebounds and 3 steals. His missed three led to the late foul on Curry, which led to Pegues' technical.
With the game over, and press conferences going on, he came back out to the court, and was shooting threes. Soon after Dre Davis came out to do the same.
These guys care. Which is more than people might've said four games ago, right or wrong. The rotations still aren't down. Mason Faulkner played just 13 minutes, but his 5 points and 4 assists weren't much off the 8 points one assist of Noah Locke, who played 31. The Louisville bench outscored North Carolina 44-0.
Louisville is a team of one-dimensional players, which makes lineups and situations very difficult to manage. That's no less true for Pegues than it was for Chris Mack. But with a team that is fully engaged, perhaps Pegues now can hone in on the basketball, to help this team write a hopeful ending to this tumultuous season.
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