Louisville basketball game grades: Fouls, more fouls, and a Cards win

Louisville basketball showed up in a big way, knocking off the Southern Jaguars to move to 2-0.

After knocking off Nicholls State to get his first win as the head coach of Louisville basketball, Chris Mack said, “It doesn’t feel very good. I don’t think we played very well. I don’t think we were very tough. I’m happy that we won, but I’m certainly not happy with the way we won.”

The message of playing hard and doing whatever it takes to win was received well by his team as they headed into their second game of the season. The game started slow, as Louisville struggled to get much going, but it was Steven Enoch and the hustle of Malik Williams that finally got the ball rolling. Enoch started the game with 6 points, including a monster one handed dunk, before it became the Jordan Nwora show.

Coming off the bench for the second straight game Nwora wasted no time getting to work, making a layup off of a beautiful pass from Ryan McMahon. Next up were back-to-back vicious dunks, including one over a Southern defender on a fast break. All-in-all, Nwora finished the first half with 15 points, nearly outscoring the entire Southern team by himself.

The story of the first half were the refs without question, and not in a good way. For some reason, as if a game against Southern wasn’t boring enough, the refs made the game about them. In 20 minutes of play (which took exactly one hour and three minutes) there were a total of 35 fouls called, 21 on Southern and 14 on Louisville.

Southern had two players with four fouls before the break, and a total of 13 offensive fouls were called. If you were watching the broadcast on the WatchESPN app (don’t even get me started on that garbage) you likely heard Kent Taylor mention that a foul was called on average every 32 seconds. Unreal.

Though it was sloppy at times, the Cards had already put the game away by halftime, leading 49-22. Louisville shot just 2-10 from the three point line, but behind their hustle, great free throw shooting, rebounding, and defense they showed a much improved performance from their first game.

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The second half went a lot like the first half for both teams. Louisville continued to play with the intensity that Coach Mack said was missing in the first game of the season, especially on the defensive side of the ball. The Cards held Southern to just 10 made field goals, and forced another eight turnovers.

Jordan Nwora and Malik Williams led the way for Louisville in the second half as both finished the game with new career highs. Darius Perry also caught fire, scoring 11 points, including an acrobatic three point play. The oldest player in college basketball, Akoy Agau, also finished with a career high 7 points. Congrats old man!

Though Louisville went head-to-head with a far inferior opponent, fans should walk away withe team’s ability to take coaching in stride and fix things issues as they pop up.

I will walk away from tonight remembering that a foul was called every 36.6 seconds. Southern finished the game with 54 points compared to 36 fouls.

Also – shout out to the Villens!

MVP: This is a hard one, but for me it was Louisville’s collective defensive effort. Guys who you wouldn’t normally associate with playing strong defense like, Malik Williams, Jordan Nwora, and Ryan McMahon all made huge plays and did the little things that it took to win. Louisville held Southern to just 40% from the field, 30% from deep, and forced 22 turnovers.

LVP: The referees and it was a landslide. I can imagine there was some type of pre-game huddle as the players were being announced before the crowd where the refs decided “this game is going to suck unless we do something. Let’s call all the fouls we can. If they blink – foul. If they put any kind of contact on someone – Foul. We must get and keep the fans attention tonight guys.” Whatever it was it worked. The refs called 65 fouls, including an incredible 35 in the first half. Go home refs, you’re drunk.

X-Factor: Malik Williams‘s effort tonight was unreal. In a game where Chris Mack was looking for improved effort, Williams led by example. Whether it was diving for lose balls, setting hard screens, passing up open looks for better shots for his teammates, blocking shots, or grabbing boards – Malik Williams did it all. So many times last season Williams was pulled off the floor because he seemed lost and out of place, but once again, the sophomore big man played his tail off for Louisville.

Stat of the night: Southern somehow managed to finish the first half with 22 points and 21 fouls. Bravo Jags, bravo.