Louisville basketball: 3 bold predictions vs. Clemson

The ACC Player of the Year Award slips away from Jordan Nwora for good

The narrative on Jordan Nwora has completely shifted over the last month or so after a few duds from the junior wing. Once viewed as a near-lock to win the ACC Player of the Year award, Nwora’s run of poor performances, even with a few big scoring outputs mixed in, has essentially led those who follow the ACC to dismiss the chances of Louisville’s star player winning the award.

While Nwora’s season has by no means been a disappointment, the bad performances have left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. Especially his two-point, three rebounds, four turnover game in a loss to Georgia Tech. That was easily the worst game of the junior’s career as he was relegated to the bench during the waning moments of a game that Louisville still had every opportunity to win.

With Louisville dropping a game in the fashion they did against Georgia Tech it was obvious that the decision to keep Nwora on the bench was something Mack was going to be asked about in his post-game press conference.

Here’s what he said:

"”They put a 5-foot-11, 6-foot tough kid on him. We run post-up plays and Jordan [Nwora] can’t figure out how to be tough enough to hold a guy off of him and lay the ball in.”"

It was obvious throughout the entirety of the game against Tech that Nwora wasn’t in the right headspace. His first shot in the game for Louisville didn’t come until nearly the 13-minute mark, by which he already had already turned the ball over twice and picked up a cheap foul.

The Yellow Jackets made it a priority to take away Louisville’s star forward and it worked. His defense was atrocious throughout the majority of the game as was his willingness to rebound. When he was aggressive on offense most of the plays ended on turnovers or missed shots (he went 1/6 from the field) which ultimately diminished his confidence by the minute.

Losing to Georgia Tech was by no means Nwora’s fault, but his lack of effort at times and inability to get going offensively really hurt the chances to finish a very winnable game.

If history tells us anything it’s that Nwora doesn’t do well against Clemson coming off of a bad showing against Georgia Tech. Just two weeks ago when the Cards played the Yellow Jackets on a Wednesday followed by Clemson on a Saturday, Nwora struggled. Though he had 10 points in both games and provided more of an impact, he still wasn’t the same guy.

Clemson is an athletic team who isn’t afraid of physicality and with Nwora seemingly being challenged by his coach to be tougher, don’t think for a second Clemson won’t try to expose that.

The criticism of Nwora in a few games this season is fair, although I won’t go as far as saying he’s a detriment to the team overall or needs to have his role switched like others have called for. To say he doesn’t deserve to win the ACC POY at this point in time would be fair, and with another poor performance against Clemson, his fate when it comes to winning that award will be all but sealed.

That doesn’t mean the seasons over or there’s any reason to lose hope, but a string of five bad performances ranging from really bad to ehh where he averaged just 7.2 points per game on a miserable 29 percent shooting while only grabbing 5.4 rebounds and having a near 2:1 assist to turnover ratio, has essentially all but altered voters opinions on his ability to be great.