Louisville basketball grades: Cardiac Cards reappear, knock off Lipscomb

Louisville basketball had a tough mid-week matchup with Lipscomb, a tournament team from a year ago. It was a battle until the end, but the Cards picked up a big win along the way.

Louisville basketball vs. Lipscomb on a Wednesday night at the KFC Yum! Center. Can you feel the excitement? Maybe not, but Lipscomb is by no means your typical low mid-major who comes in to collect a check and get destroyed.

Many knew the potential of an upset heading into Wednesday night’s game, others weren’t quite sure who this team was, from a city they couldn’t pinpoint on a map. But all were in a for a good game as Louisville was trying to pick up a quality win while bouncing back from a devastating one point loss to Indiana on Saturday.

A lot of the time you don’t expect to learn anything about your team playing against mid-majors in the early non-conference. However, last night even in a fairly poor performance, the Cards figured out a way to win a close game. Several statistics pop out of the stat sheet and show just how bad, in areas, Louisville was against Lipscomb. The biggest being the Cards turned the ball over 17 times (23.6% of possessions resulted in a turnover) compared to Lipscomb’s 11 and compiled a season low 13 assists.

The positives in my opinion far out weighed any of the negatives that you might be able to find against Lipscomb. While VJ King and Steven Enoch struggled mightily, combining for 5 points and 9 rebounds in 28 total minutes of play, the play of Malik Williams and Dwayne Sutton did far more for the Cards.

Like we’ve seen in several games this year, Malik Williams & Dwayne Sutton did all of the little things so well that it made the difference in the score of some of the more high powered offensive Cards. Williams and Sutton combined for 24 points (14 from Dwayne, 10 from Malik), 22 rebounds, and 4 blocks. They were all over the place, knocking down shots from inside the paint, getting to the free throw line, even hitting three’s, while defensively they did a great job of staying in front of their man and cleaning the boards.

Jordan Nwora had another big game for Louisville offensively, but still struggled with turnovers and poor defense (at times). He was three points short of hitting his career high three games in a row, finishing with 22 points. Most of Nwora’s points came in the first half, where he scored 16 points and giving the Cards a great shot maker when it was needed. The second half was a bit more challenging as the Bison defenders did a great job of keeping him from coming around screens ready to shoot and getting their hands in and stripping the ball lose. He finished the game with 22 points, 9 rebounds, and 4 turnovers.

Even when Louisville seemingly got away from Lipscomb, going up by as many as 12 in the second half, it was Garrison Matthews that kept the Bison in it. Whenever he got the ball off a screen or even while trying to take his man off the dribble, Matthews had it. He shot 5/11 from deep, scoring 20 total points. The Bison never quit and even when it looked like Louisville had their number they showed why they are a team being talked about as an at-large tournament team come March.

They showed skill, tenacity, smarts, and the ability to hang with a team that has far superior athleticism and talent. All in all, it was a great team win for Louisville and another reason to believe that they are going to exceed expectations this season.

Let’s hand out some grades.