Louisville basketball: Jordan Nwora will only improve from here on out

Louisville basketball’s star player had a rough game against their biggest rival and fans turned on him. Let’s break down why Nwora can only improve on this struggle-filled performance. 

When the buzzer sounded at Rupp Arena on Saturday evening, Louisville basketball’s fan base reached an all-time level of toxicity. You could probably have expected this since the Cards once again came up short against Kentucky in basketball. Fans were calling out players, calling out coaches, and it wasn’t pretty. Star forward Jordan Nwora was the victim of many social media demons. Fans called him trash for not showing up in the rivalry game, and some fans went as far as to say that they’d rather him not be on their team.

Yes, I get it. Jordan Nwora had his worst game of the season, by far. He only scored eight points, shot two for 10 from the field, and shot 1 of 6 from beyond the arc. He also only grabbed four rebounds, turned the basketball over three times, and connected on three of his six free-throw attempts. None of this excuses fans to go out and rip him a new one on the internet, but that’s just part of society nowadays.

In all of my years as a sports fan, I have never seen a fanbase turn on their star player as quickly as they did Jordan Nwora. Some of the takes I’ve seen regarding the junior forward are excessive and insane. If you’d rather not have Jordan Nwora on the team, you’ve obviously not realized that he’s one of the best players in the country, he helped Louisville get back to the tournament last season, and he’s obviously a big reason why the Cards are a top 10 team in the nation.

Let’s all just remember: all athletes are prone to having bad performances as they are just apart of sports. It sucked that Nwora had his worst game against Kentucky, but it’s ultimately just a bad game and one that he can learn from and move on from. After taking a few days to digest the game, I went back and rewatched all of Nwora’s possessions against Kentucky, and I analyzed it all.

One of my biggest things is that I feel like Jordan didn’t give enough effort to get open when he didn’t have the ball in his hands, and he just wasn’t moving around enough on offense. He’s been susceptible to this issue in the past, and he needs to be better at making things happen off-ball. When I initially watched the game, I felt like his body language wasn’t good and he wasn’t playing with the right attitude or mindset. Rewatching it only echoed those concerns for me, and those are both issues that need to be fixed.

While he took some bad shots and multiple contested jumpers, Nwora missed a bunch of shots that he typically drains. He was ice cold against Kentucky and he just really could not buy a bucket throughout the contest. In the video below, a stalled possession leads to Nwora getting the ball up top while the shot clock is winding down. He uses a ball screen from Malik Williams to force Kentucky to switch Nick Richards onto him before using a nice crossover and hesitation move. He turns this into a step-back three-pointer in which he has created space between him and Richards. The shot clanks off the side of the rim. I’ve watched Louisville since Nwora arrived two seasons ago, and he’s very capable of hitting that shot.

Nwora also wound up settling for too many jumpers in the game. He didn’t attack the paint enough against smaller defenders. While he doesn’t have the quickest feet to do so, he’s stronger and bigger than many of the players that Kentucky had guarding him. He finished on only one of his drives to the basket and he also got fouled on the play. On a few times, Nwora drove to the basket and clearly got fouled but the refs did not blow their whistle. On other occasions, Nwora would drive to the basket before getting stripped by bigger defenders while he was on his way up.

A typically reliable 77.4 percent free-throw shooter, Jordan Nwora is usually one of Louisville’s best in terms of converting at the charity stripe. Against Kentucky, he struggled there, only converting 50 percent of his attempts. To be fair, the entire team struggled when it came to converting at the line, but Nwora is better than that.

On offense, it seems that Nwora is so much more productive and is a way better player when the defender takes a step off him and has to race out to close out on him. The Cards need to start utilizing the drive-and-kick more to set more of these shots up for Nwora on the perimeter. One of the problems is that Nwora is the only true threat on the dribble-drive, and none of the guards are consistently getting into the middle of the top tier defenses. Nwora’s only made three-pointer against Kentucky occurred when the Cards pushed the pace and moved the ball to him in the corner. Kentucky forward E.J. Montgomery had to run from the paint to close out on the shot, but Nwora drained it.

I think everybody should know how talented Jordan Nwora is. He’s not one of these players that will consistently be shut down when he goes up against fierce competition. He’s talented enough to get buckets against any player and any team in the nation. He just had a bad game and he’s more than capable of overcoming it. He needs to be better if Louisville wants to be a serious contender to win the national championship, and I have full confidence that he will be better. He’s a National Player of the Year candidate for a reason people.

We all know Louisville is better when he’s playing well, but it’s to a much more massive extent than people may realize. Since the beginning of his sophomore season, Louisville has gone 18-3 in games in which Nwora scores 20-plus points. They’ve only lost one home game when Nwora gets over this barrier. They are 10-13 in the last two seasons when he doesn’t manage to score over 20 points.

Lastly, it’s crazy to think that Nwora’s game against Kentucky still wasn’t even the worst game of his career at Louisville, despite the terrible timing. In an overtime road loss to Pittsburgh last season, he only scored eight points and shot 14.3 percent from the field. Since his sophomore season began, he’s played in 47 games and only has shot below 30 percent from the field in seven of those games. The Cards are 2-5 when he shoots below 30 percent.

Stats are just stats in the long run, but Nwora will be better than his game against Kentucky. He’s been projected to be a first-round draft pick for a reason, he’s not just a fluke. He just needs to play with more energy than he did against UK, and I know he’s very capable of it. He’s going to have nights where not all of his shots are falling, but he’s going to need to impact the box score in more areas than points. We’ve seen him do it before, so don’t doubt that he’ll do it again!

He’s got a huge chance to bounce back already, as the Cards will host the 18th-ranked Florida State Seminoles on Saturday afternoon in a game that will be televised on ESPN2. FSU has a defense that plays with a similar style and intensity to Kentucky’s, so Nwora will have a tough matchup that gives him a chance to silence the doubters.

He’ll need your loud support in the crowd during the game, so don’t be afraid to buy a ticket and show out!