LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – If you had told me that No. 19-ranked Miami would score 93 points against Louisville in their game at the Watsco Center on Saturday night, I’d have said, “sounds about right.”
I also would have said that the Cardinals would lose by 30.
So the surprise of the night in Louisville’s loss to the Hurricanes isn’t that the Cardinals lost for the 22nd time this season. It’s that they had their best offensive performance of the season in a 93-85 loss.
You can’t quite call it a moral victory if you score 85 points and shoot 58 percent from the field and still get beat. That hasn’t happened at Louisville since 1997. According to Louisville stats guru Kelly Dickey, the Cards had won 158 in a row when scoring at least 85.
But you also can’t express surprise at that turn of events from a team that ranks next-to-last in defensive efficiency, ahead of only Notre Dame, among Power 6 teams.
Translation: The Cards haven’t much guarded anyone all season.
First-year coach Kenny Payne had hoped last night would be different. But hope is not a plan.
“We were hoping we could come in here and defend them and make it tough for them, be able to keep the ball in front, not allow them to get the ball in the paint and spread out the shooters,” Payne said. “But defensively we just didn't bring the effort we needed to beat a team like this. A team that's really versatile, has good shooters, good post play, and multiple scorers. And the only way to beat teams like that is to defend them. And I didn't think we did a very good job getting into them.”
It was a game where Louisville’s only hope was to play the kind of offense it played, not kill itself with mistakes, and junk the game up as best it could defensively, given the glaring defensive limitations of its roster.
One out of three was not good enough.
“I like what we did offensively,” Payne said. “I liked the way we moved the ball. I liked the way we attacked the rim. I liked the shots we got. I want to continue to play that way, to get the ball moving and play free and play confidently. But at the end of the day, I look at the stats and see three of their players have 20 points or more. That's impossible. When three of their players have that kind of impact on a game, you're not winning. And that's what I'm about. I want us to win. The offense is great. But we play this game to win.”
Louisville only turned it over 12 times – its turnover percentage of 18.5 was one of its lowest of the season. But Miami turned those into a 20-4 edge in points off turnovers. Louisville continues to be passive defensively, had only three steals Saturday and forced only six turnovers.
There’s a reason for that. When you’re playing basically six, maybe seven guys, you can’t put on too much full-court pressure. And when your point guard is the majority of your offense, he simply can’t be pressuring the ball for 40 minutes.
When you have limited options, you have to make difficult choices. Still, Louisville has looked particularly unequipped to mount any kind of consistent defensive presence all season.
And even when its initial defense was successful, Louisville gave up 11 offensive rebounds which Miami turned into 19 points. The Hurricanes scored on 68 percent of their possessions.
Miami is a good team, and it is playing its best basketball of the season. Louisville is a bad team. And even with its poor defense, played its best basketball of the season, led by El Ellis, who had a career-high 33 points with 5 assists and just 2 turnovers in 37 minutes.
“I saw progress. I mean, you look at our stats, 58 percent from the field, 43 percent from three, 81 percent from the free-throw line. That's progress,” Payne said. “But on the other side, you need winning basketball. Did we fight? Yes, we fought. We made Miami uncomfortable at times. But we need to do that consistently. This isn't just ‘give a good effort.’ We need to come out of games with a win. We need W's. And, let me give credit to my team because they're coming off a game where they were embarrassed by what Pittsburgh did to us. So, we came out and we fought. And El led us in that regard. El played a great game. That's what he has to do. We just need more guys to step up. We're not a team that can have two or three guys who aren't playing the way we need them to play. Every person who steps on that floor is vital to us. We can't depend on two guys and win. You have to be productive. You don't have to be the most talented team, but you better be fighting to get a win, or you won't win.”
I’m no coach, but let me add a word. Fighting isn’t enough. Of course, you have to fight. You have to have effort. But it takes more than effort.
Louisville fought last night. But you have to execute. Frankly, it’s something I’ve listened to from John Calipari for years when his teams weren’t winning. They just have to fight harder. Make a shot. Get a rebound. Get a stop. That tends to work better when you have a team of high school All-Americans. Most teams do not.
Sometimes you have to play smarter, not just harder. Sometimes you need to mix up defenses, or do something to try to slow an opponent’s tempo.
I once had a former Louisville football player tell me the difference going from playing for Bobby Petrino to Steve Kragthorpe (and there were many). After a loss, Kragthorpe told the team they would fix their mistakes and bounce back and win. Petrino would tell the team the same thing. But Petrino would tell them how they were going to fix the mistakes, and why they would win the next week.
These players do deserve credit. They showed some character on Saturday night in Miami. They have not quit. And after the loss they suffered at Pitt, that’s not an easy thing.
They did fight. And they do believe – though it takes more than belief, just like it takes more than just fight.
“I feel like guys are starting to play better,” Ellis said. “You can see growth from the beginning of the season until now. Guys are wanting to get better. We still believe if we stay together and continue to work hard we're going to win some games.”
Last night, against a good team, they looked more like a team that could conceivably make that happen.
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