LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The first glimpse of University of Louisville basketball under new coach Pat Kelsey is in the books, and while summer exhibition games are no basis on which to draw hard and fast conclusions, first impressions are what they are.
Put simply, in these parts, we've seen much worse. The following are less conclusions than observations from Louisville's 111-59 exhibition win over a Bahamas Select team that put up 104 points in an exhibition loss to UNC Wilmington just two nights before.
Summing it up, it felt like a level of basic basketball competence that, played against the backdrop of the past couple of seasons, actually felt breathtaking.
More thoughts:
1. PASSING, PASSING, PASSING. The thing that pleased Kelsey, and which should also please Louisville fans, was that not only were players grasping a scheme predicated on sharing the ball, but they had a great willingness to share it — even when there was little need to.
"We'll obviously play against much, much better defenses," was Kelsey's polite way of saying that there was token resistance to his offense.
It's always tougher when an opponent that has had more time to organize can take away things you want to do offensively. Still, faced with an opponent that could've been broken down off the dribble in one-on-one play, an experienced Louisville team kept running its stuff, for the most part.
A year ago, against a similarly overmatched opponent, Louisville put up 91 points in an exhibition opener against Simmons College of Kentucky. But it did so largely beating opponents one-on-one. It dished out only 13 assists. On Tuesday night, this new-edition Louisville team dished out 38 assists. All but five of its 43 field goals came off a pass from a teammate. Had it been a real game, it would've broken the school assist record by four.
"We are constantly harping on what we call the power of the unit," Kelsey said. "... It's amazing how much can be accomplished when nobody cares who gets the credit. We celebrate those things. ... It would have been so, so easy just for guys to start going on-on-one. It was good to see the sharing of the ball, that we played hard, crashed the offensive glass to our standard. ... A game like that, it's easy to start playing 'me' ball. Our guys didn't do that. They continued to give up good shots for great shots."
2. THE MATURITY SHOWED. This rebuilt Louisville team has four 1,000-point scorers. It has 10 guys who played in last season's NCAA Tournament. It has a half-dozen players who have logged more than 2,000 Division I minutes.
That maturity played into that late-game discipline in not allowing for too much garbage time. There were a couple of "showtime" type drives to the basket, but not many, given the 40-plus point lead.
"We definitely have a veteran group," Kelsey said. "Listen, we're treating these games like in-season. Our staff has done all type of background on all these players, and we're tracking down video from their professional careers and statistics and we did this scout exactly how we would do it during the season. That's part of this trip. It's the guys getting used to how we roll, right? How we prepare, how we scout, and we'll do the same thing for a very, very good Calgary team on Thursday."
3. THE YOUTH CONTRIBUTED. James Scott, a 6-foot-11-inch sophomore who played a good bit for Kelsey last season at Charleston, drew the start and was pretty effective for 14 minutes before hitting the floor hard on a dunk attempt and leaving the game with an injured wrist.
In 14 minutes he went 3-3 from the field, grabbed five rebounds, had three assists and a blocked shot.
Louisville also got a strong start from freshman Khani Rooths. Kelsey said he didn't start the game particularly well but played well on balance, finishing with 14 points on 4-12 shooting from the field (after missing his first five shots). He also had six rebounds and a blocked shot.
"He bounced back," Kelsey said. "I don't think he started great. But, you know, he's playing with a bunch of older dudes. Whether it was defensive lapses or things like that, he just didn't get out of the gate well. But he really responded. He made some really good defensive plays, knocked down a bunch of open shots. I love coaching Khani. He's different from the normal freshman because he doesn't want to be a freshman. He doesn't want to be the guy holding the group back. With concepts, you tell him something one time, and he's got it. I noticed that about him the first week I had him. All the coaches I see on the road and talk to at AAU ask, 'How's Khani doing?' I'm like, 'Man, he's going to be really good.' He wants to be really good. He wants to be coached. So it was good to see him make some shots and play well."
4. THE MAINSTAYS DELIVERED. They are who you probably thought they would be. He didn't have his best shooting night, but Terrence Edwards Jr. scored 10 points (on 4-10 shooting) and had five assists in 21 minutes, during which U of L was +36 on the scoreboard, the highest mark on the team. Kader Traore did everything. He 11 points, seven rebounds and six assists in 21 minutes.
Chucky Hepburn didn't shoot it well (1-7 from the field, three points) but led the team and was a dogged on-ball defender. J'Vonne Hadley came off the bench to lead the team in scoring with 18 points (8-10 from the field) and grabbed six rebounds. "Scorin'" Koren Johnson did that, with 15 points on 6-8 shooting. He also had nine assists, six rebounds and three steals.
And there was Kasean Pryor, who had three early three-pointers to get things going for the Cardinals, and finished with 17 points.
5. THE TEMPO SHOWED. Â Louisville had 84 possessions in Tuesday night's game. Last season, Louisville averaged 70 per game and 66.4 the year before. The Cardinals topped 80 possessions only once in a game last season (86 in a 101-92 win over Florida State).
The Cardinals scored on nearly 55% of those possessions, a rate of 1.321 points per possession.
Again, it would be unwise to read too much into that, given the defense the Cardinals were playing against. Still, the pace Kelsey has promised was in evidence.
"We obviously play at a very past pace," Kelsey said. "A huge part of our system is our offensive rebounding. Both of those require great effort and because of that it's important to have depth. ... You know (Bahmas) leaked out a lot and I thought our defensive transition could have been a little bit better. That's an area we'll address in practice."
Kelsey's substitution patterns seemed comfortable. It's difficult to read too much into them in just one game. Nobody played more than 23 minutes and 10 players saw double-digit minutes.
Kelsey said he'd know more about Scott's availability on Wednesday. He also said that Noah Waterman, a 6-foot-11-inch forward from BYU who didn't play Tuesday because of a sprained ankle, will be evaluated again.
Related Stories:
Copyright 2024 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.
