Louisville basketball still has time to get back into its groove

Louisville basketball fans have reason to worry after the Cardinals’ two-game skid, but there is still plenty of time left to get right before March.

Former Louisville basketball head coach Rick Pitino used to stress the fact that a good shooting night could cover a multitude of weaknesses.

For the Cardinals and current head coach Chris Mack, Pitino’s assertion could perhaps never have been truer than of the trajectory of their 2019-20 season.

Louisville entered the season one of the favorites to win it all, and for the first eight weeks they were everything experts and fans alike thought they could be. The Cards spent the first two months ranked in the top five, and after climbing to the No.1 spot in the AP Poll they dominated then-No. 4 Michigan.

This looked to be Louisville’s year… until it wasn’t.

A lackluster loss to Texas Tech in Madison Square Garden was written off as just a bad night. But the Cardinals have shown real flaws over their last two match-ups in losses at Kentucky in overtime and at home to Florida State.

The Wildcats and Seminoles are no slouches, both ranked in the AP top 20 and boasting multiple top 25 wins and long, imposing, athletic rosters.

But it’s still a concern if you’re a Louisville fan; Especially to drop a home match-up by double digits.

In a season where there is a ton of parity across the college basketball landscape, Louisville seems like a team that should stand out above the rest.

The Cardinals boast a roster with three fifth-year seniors, a junior who is a consensus All-American, and a crop of young talent mixed with veteran experience.

Louisville began the season red-hot from the floor, and coupled their excellent shooting start with stifling defense and consistent play across the board.

However, as the competition has stiffened, so too have the Cardinals, and when the game matters most, shots aren’t falling.

Against Kentucky, Louisville went 9/20 (45 percent) from the free throw line in a game where just one more free throw at any point during regulation would have propelled them to victory.

Star Jordan Nwora had his worst output of the season, scoring only eight points against the Wildcats.

A week later, Nwora returned to form against Florida State, scoring 21 in the first half and 32 overall. Only this time, his team was well off the mark.

Nwora finished a remarkable 11-of-15, but the rest of his teammates were only 13-for-47 from the field and 3/13 from beyond the arc.

What began as a promising season is beginning to diminish against tougher opponents.

Still, there’s good news for Louisville fans. The Cardinals have time on their side.

One could argue that the Cardinals have not played any worse in their losses than they did in their wins.

Louisville takes care of the ball, still plays quality defense, out rebounds it’s opponents by a wide margin, and overall looks like a complete team. The one difference is that the shots aren’t falling.

Perhaps the tough back-to-back shooting nights are a result of the team losing its rhythm over the holidays. Louisville played only two times in 17 days between Christmas week and the beginning of the New Year. Their other loss was on the heels of Thanksgiving weekend.

Regardless, tough stretches happen to every team.

Most entered the season expecting Louisville to have plenty of blemishes on its resume given their tough ACC schedule and excellent competition against out of conference foes.

Even some of Louisville’s best teams of the past decade lost their way for stretches.

Louisville’s 2012 final four team lost at home on senior night to South Florida and had inexplicably bad shooting nights throughout the season.

The Cards’ 2013 Championship squad dropped three straight games before winning every game left on its schedule.

In 2014, Louisville dropped two games to a Josh Pastner-led Memphis squad with inferior talent and coaching.

Bad stretches happen. Bad shooting happens.

But it should take more than a couple bad shooting nights for fans to get too concerned. At this point, there’s no proof that Louisville’s losses are not the exception instead of the norm.

Until then, one can look to the bulk of the Cardinals’ season and see that there’s a lot to like about Chris Mack’s squad.