Louisville basketball will look to build momentum in ACC play as they head on the road to face Notre Dame in South Bend.
It’s been a shaky couple of weeks for the Louisville basketball program, following the hot start and number one ranking early in the season. The loss to Kentucky, followed up by the shellacking from Florida State left the players, coaches, and fans all trying to figure out what was happening and how it could be fixed.
There were more questions than answers relating to point guard play, rotations, and the overall mentality heading into the Miami game where Louisville would get the chance to dominate. They did that early but ultimately allowed a very short-handed Miami team to get back into the game behind dominant scoring efforts from Chris Lykes and Kameron McGusty.
Louisville would go on to win that game pretty handily, but it left many to wonder (including myself) if the mental mistakes and frustrations from previous games may just be who this team is. Mack applauded his team’s ability to defend at times but said they had to learn how to play their style of basketball for a full 40-minute game – rather than picking and choosing times to get going.
Without a few days to get things right in practice, Mack and his squad will head north to face off against Mike Brey’s tough Notre Dame team who currently sits at 10-5. The Notre Dame of 2019 is nowhere near the competition of what we’ve been accustomed to seeing from the Irish, but with a loaded starting five and a great inside/outside combination they are team more than capable of knocking off Louisville.
Even with plenty of games left in the season, this is a game that feels like a must-win. Louisville has allowed average to good teams to hang around in games longer than they probably have business doing, which has brought up a lot of concern about mental toughness and closing ability.
From this point out, every game is a losable game even against the mid to bottom level teams in the ACC and it just takes one bad game to throw a season off. With all the conversation about finishing this is the opportunity for Louisville to do that. If they can’t, we may be talking about having to re-evaluate expectations long-term.
The matchup advantages are there but can Louisville take advantage?
Gameday Central:
Who: No. 13 Louisville (12-3) (3-1) vs. Notre Dame (10-5) (1-3)
Where: Joyce Center, South Bend, Indiana
Time: 2:00 PM EST
How to watch: ESPN
How to listen: 790 AM WKRD
Spread check: Louisville -3.5 (Courtesy of Action Network)
Last matchup: March 13, 2019 – Louisville 75, Notre Dame 53 (ACC Tournament first round)
Current streaks: Notre Dame – L1, Louisville – W1