Louisville basketball: What we learned about Cards in loss to Kentucky

Cards aren’t going to win games if Jordan Nwora can’t score.

One of the biggest concerns from Louisville’s loss to Texas Tech earlier this month was the performance of the team when leading scorer Jordan Nwora got virtually shut out of the game on offense. The same can be echoed after this game, although the Cards made a viable effort to come back against Kentucky while Nwora sat on the bench in the middle stages of the second half. Nwora had a worse game today than he did against Tech, and it was a performance that got him ripped by the Louisville fanbase.

To be fair, he deserved a lot of criticism for his performance today, but you have to understand that he’s just as unhappy with himself as we are. Nwora knows he can be better and if the Cards want to win games and go far, then they need him to score. He went two for 10 against Kentucky, who was making sure that he had a difficult time scoring the basketball. He didn’t even hit a three-pointer until midway through the overtime period. Averaging over 21 points heading into this game, he only managed to score eight points in the biggest game of the regular season.

It’s not a good look for the All-American candidate, but he’ll have plenty of opportunities to get back on track against some of the top teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

I’m looking forward to seeing better body language from Nwora on the court, even when he is not doing well on the offensive end. The great players won’t let their offensive struggles affect their play on the defensive end of the floor, and Nwora needs to prove that he can do that if he wants to be considered one of the top players in all of college basketball.