LOUISVILE, Ky. (WDRB) – The Louisville men’s basketball team beat Prairie View A&M by 22 on Sunday night and was not truly threatened, save for an early 7-point deficit that quickly evaporated after the Cardinals steadied themselves.
The Cardinals did that despite 3 starters and a key reserve on the bench with injuries. They had 8 available scholarship players, and only one of those was not a freshman or sophomore – grad transfer Carlik Jones.
But if you thought Chris Mack would cut his team some slack after what was basically a drama-free victory under less-than-ideal circumstances, you can think again. The victory was good enough, sure. But “good enough” is not the goal.
“We had a lot of negatives,” Mack said. “We have a lot of young players; therefore, sometimes we have to learn lessons the hard way. We sort of sensed that before the game, that our readiness wasn't what it needed to be and that's on all of us, coaches and players. We are also shorthanded, so there's a little fatigue factor, but the body will do what the mind tells it and sometimes our mind drifts because we are a young as a team. You can't learn on the bench, unfortunately, you have to learn the lessons sometimes on the floor.”
The Cardinals turned it over 6 times in the game’s first 13 minutes, then had only 5 the rest of the way. They played four starters at least 33 minutes, in their third game in 5 days.
Mack, however, isn’t one for excuses. It’s one thing to breeze to a win. It’s another to be too “breezy” about it.
“I just thought we had a little bit of a ‘too cool’ approach,” Mack said. “We have a lot of young guys; we have a lot of sophomores that didn't play last year and a lot of freshmen. We have a lot of guys injured for the very first time in their careers, so it is sort of easy to look up in the stands and smile, but we need everybody locked in. I thought Prairie View played their tails off, Bryon (Smith) did a really good job preparing his team and being ready, but maybe we looked at the front of their jersey and thought we can just play cool -- and cool doesn't win. Cool doesn't win, it doesn't win games. Hopefully it is a lesson learned for our young guys and our entire team, our entire coaching staff. We thought that we were prepared, we knew what they were going to run, and we knew that they were going to play hard, but we didn't set the tone the right way.”
Redshirt freshman Jae’Lyn Withers scored 20 points, on 8-for-1- shooting, and pulled down 9 rebounds, but learned that his coach doesn’t grade on a curve.
“He did a really good job of finishing around the basket, especially on dump offs,” Mack said. “He was around the rim, did a really good job of catching passes in traffic and finishing. He ends up going to the line three to five times and was much more engaged and much more ready on the offensive end. Defensively, we were switching so many things. I thought the ball was in the lane, way, way too much. We have got to be able to, not just one of us, but every guy, stay big, stay in the play, do it without fouling. None of our big guys did the job that we needed them to do and hopefully it was lesson learned, but Jae' Lyn played much better tonight than the last two games and quite honestly we needed him because a few of his counterparts didn't play as well.”
Nor did Mack have much good news on the injury front. Samuell Williamson dislocated a toe in Friday’s win over Seton Hall and is day-to-day. Josh Nickelberry probably will not play during Louisville’s remaining bubble games, Mack said. Two expected starters Malik Williams and Charles Minlend, are out for longer stretches.
Those things will be a factor against a very good WKU team that comes to the KFC Yum! Center on Tuesday night.
“They are a good team,” Mack said. “They have a lot of talented players. Coach (Rick) Stansbury changes some things up defensively, they have got some really good playmakers, that add some shooting with the Davidson transfer. I tried to do my best over the offseason to talk Charles into moving on to the NBA, but he wouldn't do it, so, we are going to have to contend with one of the best frontcourt players in the entire country on Tuesday night. If we rebound like we did tonight, we’ll look like Gulliver’s Travels, all the Lilliputians around the basketball when he’s metal-eating around the rim. He’s really good, we saw that last year with two of our experienced post players, Malik (Williams) and Steven (Enoch), and I don't see those guys on our bench right now, so we are going to have to do it with some young guys and figure out a way.”
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