LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – The good vibes from the University of Louisville's first two games after a coaching change came crashing down in the Carrier Dome on Saturday, doomed by poor shooting against the Syracuse zone defense, which was somewhat expected, and an inexplicably lackluster performance on defense, which was not.
Syracuse made 8 of its first 9 shots and grabbed an early 10-point lead. The Orange led by 17 at the half, stretched that to 32 midway through the second half, and coasted to a 92-69 lead after calling off the dogs in the final six minutes
The Cardinals fall to 11-12 on the season, the first time the program has had a losing record in February since 2001, in Denny Crum's final season as coach. Their fifth straight loss marked the first time the program has lost five in a row since that same season, in late November and early December of 2000.
And from the looks of things, the struggles aren't over. After rousing efforts in home losses to Duke and North Carolina, the Cards were flat in this game from the start, leaving interim head coach Mike Pegues a bit confused – and more.
"I'm not into letdowns," Pegues said. "We've got to be the same team every day. We had a good game plan, or so we thought coming into it. They exposed our ball screen defense. We couldn't get stops. We didn't talk to start the game. You know, the one thing that bothered me was the lack of enthusiasm, in particular on the defensive end. We couldn't have talked about it more. I'm going to tell you something. I'm a little pissed off at our guys in the sense that enthusiasm and attention to detail was not there. And as an interim head coach stepping into what I know has been a tough situation for our guys, there will be no excuses. We'll show up every day. You will have a level of enthusiasm, attention to detail and toughness on every possession, and if not, I have to find five guys to win."
Louisville came into the game scoring on just 31.4% of its possessions against zone defense this season, according to statistics from Synergy analytics. It was making just 26.4% of its open jump shots against zone. So its offensive struggles in a sense were not surprising.
But the Cardinals were hesitant on their shots against a bigger Syracuse team, and looked absolutely lost defensively against the Syracuse pick-and-rolls, which is a staple of many offenses that Louisville has seen this season. The Orange made their first seven shots and Louisville missed some open ones, but Pegues admitted he was caught off guard by his team's inability to defend – an inability that eventually forced him to abandon the ball-screen defense and go to a switching defense, which ended up giving Syracuse mismatch after mismatch in the post.
"No excuse to allow Syracuse, who I understand its a very good offensive team, to get 25 points through the first eight minutes," Pegues said. " . . . We talked a lot going into this game about their big four of Jimmy Boeheim and Buddy Boeheim and Joe Girard and (Cole) Swider and trying to take away their rhythm threes and make the game harder on them, and we didn't do that. Unfortunately, right now our team isn't doing a good enough job, it goes without saying, understanding the significance of getting stops. We're a talented team, but not talented enough that we can come out and have a defensive showing like we did pretty much the whole night, giving away too many threes and way too many points."
The sad fact at play here is that emotion can only carry a team so far. Louisville seemed to be carrying itself on more adrenaline than execution against Duke, and again against North Carolina. But against Syracuse, which in some ways is a more problematic matchup for this team than both of its previous opponents, Louisville needed to execute a detailed defensive game plan and could not do it.
As well, against the Syracuse zone, they couldn't make enough shots, open or contested.
Because of a late run in garbage time, where they made 7 of their final 9 shots, Louisville wound up scoring on 42% of its possessions. But many of those were in transition. The Cards wound up scoring on 16 of their 42 half-court possessions against the Syracuse 2-3 zone, which was better than their season percentage, but not good enough on a day when they couldn't stop the Orange.
Moreover, this is not a good Syracuse team. The Orange improved to 12-11 with the win, and have had one of their worst defensive seasons in years.
"We'll watch film and hopefully learn from where we went wrong defensively," Pegues said. "I thought to start the game our off-the-ball defense when they got to a ball screen was off. You know, we didn't have guys where they needed to be, so we gave up dunks. And then when we didn't give up layups and dunks, we gave up threes. So, I would like to think that the guys will come in with the right attitude. We talked about that in the locker room postgame about having more of a serious nature and the maturity level about us to come in and learn on Monday from the film, but eventually that has to be carried over onto the court and we've got to do a far better job of being able to put stops together."
Be that as it may, these are not things a team should be having to work on in February. Responding with the right attitude. Guarding ball screens. Having a serious response. That can't all fall on Pegues. He's done what he could do. But this is stuff that has to be established at the start of a season and carried forward all the way through it. Establishing it in February is rare, even if a team does get an emotional lift from a change at the top.
That Syracuse got six dunks largely uncontested spoke to the defensive breakdowns.
"We flat out today didn't have guys that understood their job, and if they understood it they certainly didn't do it," Pegues said. "I don't know that it was so much effort. I think that our guys intended to play hard and at times did play hard, but it was more so of a lack of defensive execution and an inability to make multiple efforts. Defense is hard, especially against a good team that spreads you out the way Syracuse does. Oftentimes you have to be able to go from helping cover for teammate, and then recovering your man, and be able to take away a rhythm three as well as guarding the ball. And so, you know, in spurts too often throughout the game, and certainly to start the day, we couldn't do that. We have multiple guys who just couldn't get that job done. So it's my job to find five guys that can defend at a high level and not make excuses."
And if it's only five guys, Pegues said, then that's who he'll go with.
Louisville could get a couple of guys back soon. Roosevelt Wheeler has been dealing with the effects of a concussion and still hasn't been able to return to practice. Pegues said he could meet with suspended captain Malik Williams soon to discuss his future. He also said he'd be meeting with sophomore J.J. Traynor and his family this week to discuss matters the family wanted to talk about. Traynor has played only three minutes all season.
In the meantime, Pegues will search for something to get the Cardinals back into the win column when they travel to Notre Dame on Wednesday. A loss would be six straight for Louisville.
The last time a Louisville team lost six straight games was in early January of 1991.
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