Will the real Louisville basketball please stand up?

No. 1 Louisville basketball has shown flashes of brilliance in the first portion of the season, but can the Cards maintain excellence or is their loss to Texas Tech a sign of things to come?

College basketball will break your heart. Just a week ago, Louisville basketball fans were riding high after dominant victories of Western Kentucky and No.4 Michigan, and only three days later the Cards went wire-to-wire against a quality Pitt team.

Now, Louisville fans are left to question the legitimacy of the Cards’ No. 1 ranking after an ugly loss on Tuesday at the hands of Texas Tech in Madison Square Garden.

The Cardinals looked solid in the early going, but as shots stopped falling on offense, things went south quickly on both sides of the ball.

Texas Tech head coach Chris Beard did a magnificent job of creating a gameplan to force Louisville to take contested outside shots and the defensive execution the Cardinals displayed over the three games prior was nowhere to be found.

Louisville lost focus on defense and became passive on offense on an off shooting night for Jordan Nwora.

The Cardinals still had a chance to take the lead early in the second half on multiple possessions, but ultimately, Tech pushed the lead back out to double digits and coasted to a victory is shocking fashion.

Which leads us to question: Was the Michigan victory a fluke that was a result of catching a tired team on an off night, or did Texas Tech out gameplan the Cards? Which team is the real Louisville?

Will the real Louisville basketball please stand up?

The Bad

Lack of adjustments to opposing gameplans

“Ya’ll act like you’ve never seen a pack line before”

While it’s fresh on our minds, let’s go over why the Cardinals looked so inept at times on Tuesday night.

To start, this was really only the second game all season where Louisville just could not buy a shot from the floor. Multiple good looks went in and out, and it seemed like the shots that the Cards normally were taking and making were not only off but way off.

Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of bad shots taken too, but overall, the offense was stifled by Texas Tech’s defense that packed it in and then was somehow able to contest nearly every shot.

Credit Tech’s ability to come in with a really solid gameplan and then adjust when Louisville found that feeding Stephen Enoch down low was working.

We spoke before the game about how TTU was going to be outsized and outmanned by the Cardinals, but that didn’t seem to matter. The Red Raiders forced Louisville to operate out of their comfort zone and it led to mass confusion on the offensive end that ultimately bled over on defense.

TTU’s 2018-19 defense was rated the best of the KenPom era, and clearly mastermind Chris Beard has more where that came from. The Red Raiders are ranked 7th in the nation defensively, even with three losses under its belt.

Give credit where it’s due as well- Texas Tech simply made a ton of contested shots. They certainly executed their offensive gameplan well, but true freshman Terrance Shannon Jr. stuck a few on Dwayne Sutton and Jordan Nwora and transfer Chris Clarke made some shot he normally wouldn’t.

Add in resiliency and timely plays from senior Davide Moretti and surprise breakout player Avery Benson, and the Raiders did enough at the right times to keep the game out of reach.

Couple Tech’s hot shooting with Louisville’s poor shot selection and field goal percentage and that’s a recipe for a loss.

Resiliency is key

“Jaws all on the floor, struggling to make the offense conform”

Keep in mind, however, that this wasn’t the first time this season that the Cardinals couldn’t put a team away.

A pretty solid Akron squad came into the KFC Yum! Center on November 24th and gave Louisville a run for its money as well.

The Akron game and Louisville’s loss to Texas Tech are the only two real examples of where the team had to show resiliency so far in 2019.

Of course against the Zips, Louisville wound up pulling away in the end, but they let a 22-point lead in the second half slip through their fingers. Akron simply had too much ground to make up, but the fact remains that when teams have stood toe to toe with the Cardinals and been the aggressor, they have gotten what they wanted.

When Louisville’s back has been up against the wall, the Cardinals have yet to react in a way that championship teams so often do. Yes, Texas Tech is a likely tournament team, but Louisville showed that there’s a gameplan to beat them and, surprisingly, it all boils down to becoming the aggressor.

The Good

Time is on Louisville’s side

“I’m the real Louie”

If you’re looking for some optimism, however, it’s not too hard to find. Because outside of a much-too-nervy ending against Akron and just an overall bad performance against Texas Tech, it’s hard to find much not to like about this Cardinals team.

Louisville has played ten games, and one could argue that 8.5 of them have been truly impressive showings. When the Cardinals are hitting on all cylinders, the ball movement is crisp, the rebounding is intense, and that defense is stifling.

In a game against a Michigan squad that won three games in three days against three KenPom top 30 teams, Louisville made easy work of the Wolverines, absolutely destroying them on the defensive end in a game that was never in question.

Don’t forget either that Louisville is still young in spots. Yes, the Cardinals start three seniors, but the much-hyped bench play and the vaunted “Super Six” recruiting class is a serious work in progress.

The Cardinals are still trying to find ways to work freshman David Johnson into the rotation after he sat out the first four games with a wrist injury.

McDonald’s All-American Samuell Williamson has looked brilliant in spots, but he has been a no-show in Louisville’s three biggest games as he still catches up to the speed of the game.

Graduate transfer Fresh Kimble has been much the same. Though he brings three years of experience as a team captain at St. Joes to the table, he is still getting acclimated to his role on the team.

There’s a lot of kinks to work out for this squad, but the good news is that we are only 25 percent of the way through the season. There’s a lot of areas to learn and grow as a team, and there’s plenty of time to do so.

Bad games happen

“Won’t the real Cardinals please stand up?”

One final caveat is this: Every team has bad games. Every one of them. Players have off nights, coaches have bad days, people get hurt and sick, personal lives get in the way… College basketball players are human beings- young ones at that. These are kids learning on the fly and growing up before our eyes.

The period of growth between 18 and 21 years old is immeasurable, and perhaps one of the most important times of one’s life. Unfortunately for Louisville basketball players, they are charged with doing so in front of millions of eyes.

When Stew Smitherson of Lamda Alpha Gama gets a D in chemistry, nobody gives a damn. When Darius Perry commits a turnover, five thousand people tweet at him. See the difference? We all have bad days.

I’m not suggesting that fans should chalk a loss up simply to the team just being “off” for a night because there’s a lot to take and learn from Louisville’s loss on Tuesday. However, I am suggesting that perhaps that isn’t a team people will see much more of this season.

It’s time to refocus and move on to Eastern Kentucky. The real Louisville basketball has been here all along. And in four months, an early December loss is unlikely to mean a thing.