CRAWFORD | Someone has to say it: Louisville basketball — not broken | Sports

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The Louisville men's basketball program was "broken." It was easy to think that. Even easier, I suppose, to say it.

With the departure of Rick Pitino, the threat of NCAA sanction, the general dysfunction of the university for a time, you can see where the "broken" narrative took hold. Certainly, winning only 12 games over two seasons felt like it broke something, if only the bond many fans felt with the program.

But here is the fact of the matter regarding Louisville basketball, with the benefit of hindsight that now includes the nation's eighth-longest active winning streak, which extended to seven games when the Cardinals blew out Syracuse 85-61 on Tuesday night.

The program wasn't broken. It was just the victim of poor management. The car was running. It just needed somebody to hit the gas, somebody who knew how to handle the horsepower.

UL MORE Pat Kelsey — Louisville‘s Pat Kelsey makes a point to his team during his regular-season debut as Cardinals’ coach against Morehead State.
ERIC CRAWFORD

Pat Kelsey has his foot to the floor. And he doesn't appear concerned about applying any brakes. He brought his own GPS. He sold a bunch of players who had no real idea what this program has been about on restoring this program's pride and place in college basketball. And they bought in.

I am not here to relitigate the mistakes of Kenny Payne. That autopsy has been performed. Yet those failures continue to be even more glaring in light of the absolute 180 the program has achieved this season. And this year's turnaround is not built on any kind of foundation laid over the past two years. In fact, it required a total eradication of those years.

The notion Payne advanced that the program was broken, that a dark cloud hung over it, wasn't difficult to believe given the unusual events that not only preceded his arrival, but that attended his tenure. Television announcers repeated the notion. Opposing coaches adopted it.

It was, in the end, a deflection. What happened in the past two years was not inevitable. A few things are important to remember.

Chris Mack came to Louisville and won. He went to the NCAA Tournament and was on his way to winning NCAA Tournament games when COVID-19 canceled a postseason. The pandemic caused all kinds of stress. The shooting of Breonna Taylor left scars on this city and its institutions. The leadership of the university was erratic, marked by an athletic director so frustrated by administration that he resigned and a president who abruptly bolted the same week.

Was the program a mess? Absolutely. But the program wasn't broken. It was a victim of circumstance and its own leadership.

The whole Mack-Dino Gaudio incident. The decision of the university to suspend the Mack — bizarre at best and certainly not in line with athletics leadership at the time. Mack's decision to call it quits in the middle of a season. A program will pay a price for those kinds of things.

And Louisville did. But the day that the transfer portal door flew open and NIL became the law of the land, nothing else mattered. Programs could be — and were — transformed overnight.

That Louisville's program wasn't is not the fault of the program. It was the fault of its coach.

Kelsey would not talk about what happened to create the program he inherited. He just moved into the Marriott downtown and went to work. And pretty soon, he didn't like the trip from downtown to his campus office so, with his family having not yet moved from Charleston, he just slept in the office. He got after it. No two weeks in New York. No taking his time.

As the last remaining players from the previous year departed, he found new ones, who bought into his energy.

You know, everyone rolled their eyes when Payne talked about the need to love his guys. But he wasn't wrong. Kelsey talks about love, too, as a driving force. It just makes a bit better impression when you're winning.

Kelsey also talks about the power of the unit.

"We're about toughness," he said. "We're about competitiveness. We're about guys that put the team first. Our guys make people around them better. That's a Louisville basketball player: basketball IQ, hoop dudes, guys that are passionate about their craft. We strive to have the No. 1 culture in the country."

Nothing revolutionary. It's a variation on the "fight" riff. But there is a lot more behind it now.

Louisville player shield — Image of a shield that each Louisville player had to fill out before this season.
ERIC CRAWFORD

Kelsey showed his players a picture of a shield. Every player would have one. The shield is split into sections. His hero, his heartbreak, his history. His greatest triumph, his greatest weakness. His goals, his joys. Every player has had to share all of this with the rest of the team: Their hero, their hopes and their greatest joy in life. They were asked to share their biggest heartbreak, biggest weakness, their biggest triumph and their personal history. They were asked to share three things they can bring to the team, three people they'd like to have a conversation with, three things that define their character and their greatest joy in life.

"This started on June 5, when our guys didn't know each other from anybody," Kelsey said. "But when we talk about love, we mean love. That's the state of Louisville basketball. ... You're going to love this team — mature, tough, smart, committed. They're going to do everything in their power to represent this world-class city in a first-class way."

I asked him, early on, in a summer press conference, how he saw things coming together. He wasn't about to tackle that one. Kelsey only said this, "I might be able to tell you in 3 ½ weeks, I might be able to tell you in 3 ½ months. . . . There is always that time when it's like, 'Here we go. It's clicking. I'm feeling it.' You know in some years it happens like that. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer. My team at Charleston years ago, a lot of new faces, but man, it just clicked sooner. Won a bunch of games out of the box and won 31 games. Last year, we stunk at the beginning of the year. We stunk. And, you know the world is falling, or at least the ceiling's falling. 'What the heck? We were in the Top 25 last year?' And we stunk. Consistent, consistent, consistent, wound up winning a million straight. . . . We just stay focused on that process. That's boring as crap to say. You guys roll your eyes. It's what we do."

So why get into all this? Only to show the impact of leadership, energy, and dogged, relentless effort.

And yeah, the ACC is down. You know when else it was down? When the combined KenPom ratings of the teams on Louisville's conference schedule was even worse than this year's schedule? It was 2023. Just two years ago. You know what Louisville's conference record was? It was 2-18.

The ACC didn't just get down. Louisville was just so far down that the rest of the league looked up.

Down? Yes. Broken? No.

Here we go. It's clicking. You can feel it.

Demonstrably, not broken.