Chris Mack: “You can’t sharpen your teeth eating oatmeal”

Louisville basketball has a daunting schedule ahead this season, but Chris Mack believes it will help in the long-run.

Yesterday afternoon college basketball’s annual AP Top 25 poll as released with Kansas, Kentucky, and Gonzaga ranked as the nation’s top three programs.

As expected, Louisville basketball did not find themselves ranked as one of America’s top 25 teams. However, they did receive 11 votes – which may shock some people who aren’t aware of the talent the Cardinals bring back for 2018-19.

Tough schedules have been the norm around Louisville, as it was a priority to Coach Rick Pitino that the Cards prepared for their tough Big East and ACC conference schedules by playing some extremely talented teams across the country in the non-conference slate. This season is no different.

We’ve heard for months about how difficult the Louisville basketball schedule would be this season, but the newly released rankings were a confirmation of that. Louisville will play a record number of ranked teams this season (as it stands now) with seven games coming against teams in the top 10.

Chris Mack was a guest on 247 Sports’ Evan Daniels podcast that was released this morning, where he spoke a bit more about the daunting schedule ahead for Louisville.

"“I’d say 95% of the schedule was already made really before our staff stepped on campus, that’s okay. Coach (Skip) Prosser who I coached with a long time at Xavier and Wake Forest, said ‘you can’t sharpen your teeth eating oatmeal.’"

Just like Coach Pitino, Louisville’s Chris Mack is a big fan of scheduling tough outside of the conference. In an article written earlier this year former Courier Journal writer, Jeff Greer, dove a little deeper into the scheduling habits of the new coach. He wrote:

"“Over his nine seasons coaching the Musketeers, Mack’s nonconference schedules ranked in the top 50 in the nation six times. The 48-year-old didn’t shy away from putting challenging true road games on his team’s schedule, and he made sure to get Xavier into a nonconference tournament each season.”"

While Chris Mack acknowledged on The Sideline Podcast with Evan Daniels that the current schedule was put together by the former coaching staff at Louisville, jokingly saying

"“Everybody is blaming him (Rick Pitino) for everything else, we can probably throw Coach Pitino under the bus for this one as well.”"

As mentioned before, Louisville has a lot of holes to fill this season after losing guys like Ray Spalding, Quentin Snider, Deng Adel, and Anas Mahmoud from a 20+ win team that failed to make the NCAA Tournament. Role players from last year’s team like V.J. King, Jordan Nwora, Darius Perry, Dwayne Sutton, Ryan McMahon, and Malik Williams will be forced to play bigger roles this season along with graduate newcomers, Christen Cunningham, Khwan Fore, and Akoy Agau as well as UConn transfer Steven Enoch. With only three seniors and no one on the current roster having experience playing for Chris Mack, things could get interesting early.

The Cards will have just three games to get ready for #6 ranked Tennessee in Brooklyn at the NIT Tip Off. Win that game, which would be a huge upset as Tennessee is one of two teams seen to be the favorite in the SEC, and you likely get a matchup with #1 ranked Kansas.

After the NIT Tip Off, Louisville will have just a few days before getting a matchup with #10 ranked Michigan State, followed up by unranked but talented teams like Indiana and Seton Hall. Then of course the Cards will finish the non-conference schedule with #2 ranked Kentucky.

“Nobody is going to accuse us of eating oatmeal this year in the non-conference part of the schedule,” Chris Mack said to Evan Daniels when talking about this years loaded slate, and that is 100,000% true. The Cards could head into the conference schedule with as many as five or six losses, which makes the conference schedule that much more important.

It won’t get any easier when the team heads into conference play. In the first AP poll, the Cards have matchups with #4 Duke, #4 Virginia (2x), #8 North Carolina (2x), #15 Virginia Tech, #16 Syracuse, #17 Florida State, and #22 Clemson. However, unlike last year’s team, who played against just two ranked teams in Purdue and Seton Hall in the non-conference, 2018-19’s squad will be one that is battle-tested and ready to go to war for a NCAA berth come March.

Chris Mack has shared multiple times this offseason that he is a firm believer in challenging his team to be competitive and earn their bid into the tournament. Though this will be a bit of a transition season for him and his new team, that won’t stop his belief that this team is good enough to make the tournament, even with the difficult schedule.

“History will show that the NCAA Selection Committee rewards teams that challenge themselves. It’s going to be a very very challenging schedule,” Chris Mack said last month when appearing on Ramsey & Rutherford on 790 KRD in September.

We are just a few short weeks away from the season getting underway and even a daunting scheduling ahead this team is ready.

You can check out the full podcast from Evan Daniels with Chris Mack here.