Louisville basketball: Chris Mack has a history of winning when it matters
Louisville basketball coach Chris Mack has a history of getting his teams to perform the best when their backs are up against the wall.
Louisville basketball has had a roller coaster of a season under first year head coach Chris Mack.
The story of the Cards’s season to this point has been twofold. On one hand, Louisville has been able to completely outplay, out-execute, and beat some of the best teams in the country like North Carolina, Virginia Tech, and Michigan State. They have taken down probable tournament teams in Clemson, NC State, and Lipscomb.
However, the concern for this Louisville team is their lack of killer instinct to finish off excellent Duke, Virginia, and Florida State teams after leading them for the majority of the game.
For Mack, this isn’t necessarily anything to be overly alarmed about. Just look at his recent coaching history, and he will tell you that it’s not how you perform in the regular season, but how you finish in the conference and NCAA tournaments.
Just last season, his No.1 seeded Xavier team only lost 5 games all season, won an extremely challenging Big East conference, and was one of the favorites entering the big dance. In the end, Mack’s most talented squad to date was unable to make it past the round of 32, falling to No. 9 seeded Florida State.
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The season prior, Mack’s squad very much paralleled this year’s Louisville squad. His team finished .500 in conference play, and they were considered to be one year away from being able to make a final four push. That 2017 squad, as an 11 seed, wound up defeating the 6 seed, 3 seed, and 2 seed in their bracket before ultimately falling to eventual national runner-up Gonzaga in the elite eight.
Still, one could surmise that this Cardinals squad is one or two favorable bounces from the season looking a whole lot better. Louisville makes even the best defensive teams in the country pay consistently until the waning moments of the game, and Mack and his team are well aware of that heading into March.
After Louisville’s disappointing loss to Virginia, Coach Mack spoke about his team’s fight and morale heading into the ACC Tournament; his comments a true testament to his ability to motivate and prepare a group of 18-22 year old’s for something bigger than themselves. He said:
"“I noticed a different spirit about our team the last couple of weeks. It makes me feel really good. There’s a lot of teams this time of the year as hard as it is to believe that want their season to be over. I don’t have any type of feeling like that in our locker room. Our guys, they fought today. They’re disappointed, and they should be because we lost. We put ourselves in position against one of the best teams in the country to win the game.”"
That fight is something that defines Chris Mack’s teams, especially heading into their respective conference tournaments and the NCAA Tournament. He talked about it a little more in-depth yesterday, saying:
"“How I look at the tournament is an opportunity to win a championship. It’s nice to know that the experts feel like we’ve done enough not to worry about the second tournament, that not necessarily being a weight on our shoulders heading in, but this is a great opportunity for our team and I’m excited to see how we play.”"
Louisville is certainly able to make a run in the postseason, regardless of their recent record. If fans think that losing 5 out of 7 was tough to swallow, Mack’s squad just two years ago dropped 6 straight to a much less daunting serious of opponents, yet they were still one win away from the final four.
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The postseason isn’t about who you’ve beat, it’s about advancing. Now is the perfect time for Louisville to turn over a new leaf and try to pull together some wins when it truly counts.