Skyy Clark

Louisville point guard Skyy Clark looks inside during the second half of the Cardinals' exhibition loss to Kentucky Wesleyan.

 ERIC CRAWFORD

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- I will not draw major conclusions from an exhibition game. I will not draw major conclusions from an exhibition game. I will not draw major conclusions from an exhibition game.

I have graduated from writing that a hundred times with my Apple pencil to burning it into the wood of my coffin. Did I say coffin? I meant coffee table. That's weird. Don't mind me.

I will not draw major conclusions from an exhibition game.

But I'm about to draw an (expletive)-load of minor conclusions.

I'm remembering a conversation I had with Bobby Petrino, at his very first Conference USA Media Day as Louisville football coach. We were sitting at a round table, and there just wasn't a lot of media there, so we could talk, person to person, or person to automaton, or whatever.

I asked him a question about how he dealt with it when he would call the right play, but it didn't get executed right, the ball gets dropped or the quarterback makes the wrong read. And he said to me that calling the right play is only part of coaching.

"Everybody thinks the play call is what makes the coach good," he said. "But the reality is that it's also the coach's job to make sure the receiver can catch the ball, that the quarterback can hit the right spot. It's all coaching."

And now I'm remembering what Kenny Payne said after Kentucky Wesleyan beat Louisville 71-68 at the KFC Yum! Center before a smattering of fans on Monday night.

"The disconnect is understanding fully how hard that you've got to practice, how hard you've got to play, how desperate you have to be defensively," Payne said. "The disconnect is other teams are good. I knew going into this game that this was going to be a tough game. We needed it to be a tough game, because we need to know exactly how hard we've got to play against good talent. You know that team played well against Saint Louis. There's a reason. They're a pretty good team, and they've been together, and they play hard, and they understand what the coach is asking them to do. We are learning about ourselves. We don't have a ton of experience. The disconnect is, again, are you really going to beat teams with your talent, or are you going to beat teams with work ethic, with toughness, with fight? We can't beat teams with talent. We're never going to be the most talented team. Beat them with fight."

One game. A couple of minor observations.

1. The disconnect is no good. Understanding how hard to play and practice and all that is the basic business of coaching. Respecting your opponent is basic. It emanates from the coaching staff. It's the Art of War, 5th century B.C. stuff. If you find yourself needing a respite from college basketball this winter, and I suspect after watching that game Monday that you might, give it a read. Bob Knight called it his most valuable coaching book.

The whole notion of "fight" being the key element in winning games is one we hear a great deal from Payne. And he's right, effort and intensity go a long way. But you can play hard and still lose. A fighter can go into a fight and work his tail off and still get knocked out, if he doesn't know enough about what he's doing.

Running and playing hard are all well and good, but if you're not putting a body on somebody when the other team's shot goes up, it's not going to matter. If you're not running something to get the ball into the post where your bigs (or bigger guards) have an advantage, it's not going to matter.

KWC played a decent game. I don't think they'd tell you they played their best, by any means. But they blocked out, executed on offense, got good looks and made a few of them. And that was enough to win. They did understand what their coach was asking them to do.

But that understanding, at a basic level, is on the coach as much as it is the players.

Kenny Payne and Ty-laur Johnson

Louisville coach Kenny Payne talks to point guard Ty-Laur Johnson in the second half of an exhibition loss to Kentucky Wesleyan.

(I apologize for mixing my sports, but I refer you to Louisville's season-opening football game, after a disastrous second quarter against Georgia Tech. Jeff Brohm concluded the coaches were asking defensive players to do things they couldn't do. So they simplified things and asked them to do different things. I know this is highly technical sports jargon here, but that's the essence of the job.)

2. The whole talent thing. You know it. I know it. Kentucky Wesleyan knew it. Louisville was by far the more athletic, talented team.

KWC coach Drew Cooper knew it. Cooper, you'll remember, was an assistant to Scott Davenport from 2007-13, a run which included a national championship in Division II. From there he went to Thomas More for five seasons before taking over in Owensboro.

"So many of these games are close at halftime," Cooper said. "The D-2 team is up two or three or whatever it is, but then you come out and the bigger, stronger more athletic guys wear you down. But our guys physically felt fine. And then as they started to feel the crowd feel there was a problem, we made a few shots and our guys were tough down the stretch, made threes and free throws, got big rebounds and took care of the ball for the most part."

Fact: What talented, physically superior teams generally do against teams like KWC, Louisville was unable to do Monday night.

What Payne said about talent, that was true for Kentucky Wesleyan on Monday night. But not for Louisville. The Cardinals were the more talented team on the court. But they couldn't beat KWC with talent, that much was true.

A smaller KWC team outrebounded Louisville 47-33. Let that number sink in. The Cardinals were dominated on the glass. A smaller team beat them 16-5 in offensive rebounds, and outscored them 18-2 in second-chance points, including on a big basket late, when none of Louisville's centers were in the game.

Other numbers of concern: KWC's bench outscored Louisville's 39-4. KWC dished out 14 assists to Louisville's 7. Louisville's center position accounted for 6 points, none from a post-up field goal.

So what's to be said about this?

Yeah, there have been some teams lose exhibition games. Those aren't teams coming off four-win seasons who have completely retooled. When the coach tells you he wants a team that passes the eye test, and then you see that, what are we to say?

I'll refer you to my opening mantra.

I will not draw major conclusions from an exhibition game.

But that doesn't mean fans can't, or that they won't. My feeling heading into this season was that we'd know pretty fast whether things are better or not. My general feeling was we'd know by New Year's whether things have changed that needed to change from last season.

My guess this morning is that most Louisville fans have a pretty good idea of what they think today. And that in itself is a problem.

Last night's game might not count on Louisville's record, but it counts in the memories of fans. You can't unsee it.

Let's just say that I've seen eye tests that went better.

For now, we'll leave it at that.

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