Louisville Basketball: Good Tyme Charlie’s Takeaways – Bellarmine

New look defense is a big change of pace to years past

My biggest take away from this exhibition game was from years past under Pitino and even Interim Head Coach, David Padgett last season. That was the style of play on the defensive side of the ball. The match-up zone defense of Rick Pitino forced a lot of turnovers, which when the team wasn’t shooting the ball well, led to easy transition buckets and run outs.

With the new pack line defense Coach Mack is instilling in this group, which looked really good holding Bellarmine to just 18 first half points, it keeps the Cardinals in front of their man but is not known to lead to easy buckets off turnovers as much as the in your face, on ball pressure defense the Cardinals played in the past.

I am not saying Mack’s pack line will not lead to points. The first UL bucket of the game was a Darius Perry layup courtesy off a steal. Louisville still forced 19 turnovers leading to 24 points. Turnovers are still going to happen regardless of defense scheme.  What I am expecting to be different is the defense is not going to as often lead to offense so this team will have to execute their offense on a more constant clip. The pack line will be different and you will not have players getting lost in that hard to figure out matchup zone Pitino played. Mack is having his players stay in front of their man and ensure they are talking and calling out screens. While it may not be as exciting as defenses past, it will be successful and cut down on hand checking fouls.