LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – It was like getting blown out twice.
It was like an old Roadrunner cartoon episode, when Wile E. Coyote would fall off a cliff, land on a ledge, and then the ledge would break loose and fall.
Louisville basketball, indeed, is in free fall. Its historic descent of futility was on full display at Wake Forest on Saturday night.
The Cards fell behind by 20 points early, clawed back to within six early in the second half behind a dogged effort from their reserves, then fell back behind by 32 before Wake walked away with a 99-77 victory.
This was a Wake team Louisville had beaten 73-69 back on Dec. 29. But on Saturday, Louisville was playing out the string under an interim coach, and Wake Forest was clinging to NCAA Tournament contention after a loss at Clemson earlier in the week.
It wasn't a good combination for the Cardinals. In its history, Louisville had faced Wake Forest 11 times coming into last night's contest. It had a record of 9-2 against the Demon Deacons. The two losses were by a total of 9 points, including a one-point setback to a Tim Duncan-led team in the 1996 NCAA Tournament.
You can go ahead and write some new history.
The Cardinals scored the game's first 2 points, then Wake Forest scored the next 17. Louisville's starters where wholly ineffective. They didn't sprint in transition, failed to match up, and the Deamon Deacons exercised what looked like target practice from 3-point range. They led 24-7 before the game was 8 minutes old, and were up 28-8 soon after.
Pegues went to his bench, and players like Mason Faulkner, Sam Williamson, Sydney Curry and Noah Locke stabilized the Cardinals. They actually put together an 18-6 run to end the first half and trailed by only 8 at the break.
Whether that will be Louisville's last gasp this season remains to be seen.
Pegues went back to some of his starters to open the second half, and after scoring the first 2 points to pull within 6, the Cards faded. Wake went on a run, and Louisville was Wile E. Coyote again, their tongues dragging the pavement.
"I'm pretty frustrated that we didn't start the game the right way," interim coach Mike Pegues said. "Wake Forest had a lot to play for given that they lost to Clemson. They're fighting to get an at-large bid, but we have our own agenda, and our agenda was to come in here tonight and start the game a hell of a lot better than we did. And we didn't do that. We dug ourselves a huge hole and it's tough to get back out of that hole. But we did find five guys who competed and had a really good rhythm and played together and we ended up cutting the lead to single digits, and I take responsibility, I should have started those guys in the second half. I wanted to give the guys who didn't necessarily play great to start the game, I wanted to give them a chance to get into the game because I knew that we couldn't just play five guys the entire game. But we dig ourselves another hole in the second half and can't climb out. Rough night. Rough night for everybody involved."
Jae'lyn Withers and Malik Williams, who started the game, both left the game before it was seven minutes old. Of Louisville's 36 first-half points, 33 were scored by the bench.
It's difficult to know what else to say. Early in the game, Louisville didn't sprint back in transition and Wake Forest got hot from three-point range. In the game, Louisville got only 4 points from its starting lineup of El Ellis, Williams, Jarrod West, Withers and Dre Davis. It was the fewest points by a Louisville starting lineup since at least 1950. No Louisville starting lineup has been held to a collective single-digit scoring number in the past 70 years, at least, according to stat guru Kelly Dickey, who may as we speak be rifling through peach-basket era scores to find an equal to Saturday.
From the bench, there was effort. Sydney Curry had 28 points and 7 rebounds off the bench. Noah Locke had 14 points in a reserve role.
But neither of those could keep this from being a low point in a season full of low points. Wake scored on 62% of its possessions and shot 58% from the field. It scored on 22 of its first 29 second-half possessions against token resistance from Louisville.
Asked what allowed Louisville to come back, Pegues said: "Commitment. Commitment. Investment. Sacrifice. Will. Togetherness. Fortitude. Connectivity on the defensive end. Hustle. Basic things that can win you basketball games if you're committed to them for 40 minutes. Unfortunately, we only found 5 guys to do it for, I don't know how long a stretch it was, but I do know at one time Wake Forest only scored 6 points in 10 minutes. We played some zone that helped our cause. But, you know, again, it was the character, the fortitude of the group that was in the game at that time that allowed us to get back in the game."
Louisville is 3-8 in the month of February the past two seasons, and 10-17 since Chris Mack's first season. February fades aren't new, but this one is unlike anything anyone who follows Louisville basketball thought was possible at this point in the program's history.
With the loss, Louisville falls to 12-16 this season, with a trip to Virginia Tech on Tuesday and Senior Day against Virginia on Saturday still to come.
Whether or not there's another cliff below, there's no way to know.
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