Charlie’s Good Times: Louisville basketball vs Kent State

When the 8-1 Kent State Golden Flashes came rolling into the KFC Yum! Center I was expecting another dog fight with another quality mid-major. Instead the Louisville Basketball team came out locked in and took care of the Flashes.

The murders row of early non-conference games continued for Louisville basketball as the 8-1 Kent State Golden Flashes came to downtown Louisville.

With a quality road win over Vanderbilt (with Darius Garland – a former 5 star point guard) under their belt Kent St. was hoping to bolster their resume with another road win against our upward trending Cardinals.

Let’s take a look at the good times™.

The Good: The Cards Took care of the ball

Coming off of a 17 turnover performance against Lipscomb the Cards took much better care of the ball against Kent State, coughing up the ball just 10 times giving the Golden Flashes just 4 points off turnovers.

Coach Mack stated in his post game talk that was something the team had really worked on all week in practice and it translated to the game. This is something I really hope the squad continues to build on going into the big rivalry match up with Kentucky and heading into ACC conference play.

If Louisville can take care of the basketball and not give up points off turnovers to the likes of Duke. UNC, and Virginia then I feel the sky’s the limit for this team.

Coach Mack also mentioned the Cards will start working in practice on facing zone defenses as they have not come up against one in the past few games. I love listening to Mack discuss this team and basketball in general, he has this team bought in and the Cards are in great hands.

https://twitter.com/LouisvilleMBB/status/1074095339869659136

The Really Good: Balanced scoring

In games past it had been Jordan Nwora and always one other Cardinal in double figures scoring. But against Kent State there were four Cards in double figures (Cunningham 17, Dwayne Sutton 16, Jordan Nwora 13, and Malik Williams 13) along with Darius Perry and Khwan Fore right there with 9 points each. The offensive attacked, playing a very balanced game and it helps that they shot over 50% from the field for the fourth time this season. 18 points from turnovers, 28 points in the paint, 11 second chance points and 24 points off the bench lead to what may just be Louisville’s most dominate offensive showing of the season and lets opposing teams know if they focus on taking one piece out of the game there are a number of guys that can step up and score.

The Not So Good: Silent night from key guys

Tis’ the holiday season and while I love the Christmas tune “Silent Night” I would have liked to see more on the court from a few key guys on this team. Look, I love Steven Enoch, his presence alone is intimidating to opposing teams alone but with a stat line of 4 points and 3 rebounds in nearly 18 minutes on the floor from your starting big man is starting to concern me.  You have to go back to the Central Arkansas game to see Enoch put up double figure scoring. While he has cut down on fouls allowing him more time on the court and Malik Williams has been playing so well as of late I am hoping we see The Enochness Monster show back up soon as the competition keeps getting stiffer.

Then there is team captain VJ King. I feel like I have to preface this by first stating I love VJ King.

He stayed committed to the Cardinals when most would have made a quick exit. But, as much of a team effort as this game was VJ just was not a part of that.

0 points on only 1 shot attempt in 17 minutes, Akoy Agau and Jo Griffin are the only Cardinals that saw minutes and did not score. The issue to me with this is you do not expect Agau and Griffin to be major players in the teams success this season, I was expecting bigger things from VJ.

Again, I love VJ King and we have all seen how good of a player he is. He belongs in division 1 college basketball, he belongs as a captain on this Louisville team, he belongs on the floor and I hope it all clicks soon for King.

This was one of these early season games where it is hard to take things away and you are just not sure if it will translate in the grand scheme of the season as the games get tougher. There was plenty of positives to build on and still plenty of room to improve. Next up for the Cards is Robert Morris at the Yum on Friday. Currently 4-7 with a lot of blow out losses I fully expect the Cards to take care of business in the last tune up game prior to the big rivalry game with Kentucky on 12/29.