Louisville basketball: Three takeaways from loss to Florida State

Louisville’s guards are talented but flawed as a collective unit

Louisville went with the same starting lineup against Florida State as they did in their win against North Carolina on Saturday, using the combination of redshirt senior Fresh Kimble and blossoming freshman David Johnson – leaving Ryan McMahon and Darius Perry to come off of the bench.

The Seminoles backcourt “bullied” Louisville’s smaller guards during the first go-round which ended in a beatdown for the Cards. But with Johnson only playing 19 minutes back in early January, in just his second ACC game, there was a lot of reason for optimism. Johnson’s play over the last two weeks has been nothing short of sensational, as he’s gone from the player many hoped could become the lead guard for the Cards into a player capable of pushing this team passed their ceiling.

While Johnson, Kimble, and McMahon all found some sort of success in the first half, the second half showed off some of the major flaws this group has. Seth Davis of The Athletic and CBS does a great job each year surveying college basketball’s top coaches and pulling some of their best, unfiltered thoughts out behind the curtain of anonymity.

Here’s just a snippet of what a coach had to say about Louisville this year”

"“They have pros in the frontcourt, but their guard play is not elite. To win a national championship, you usually have to have great guard play. They’ve won because they can shoot the 3 at a high clip, but if their guards are not making 3s that would be a problem because they don’t make plays for the other guys…They do point guard by committee, but they can go to different guys.”"

With a healthy Johnson back in the lineup, one of the biggest reasons why Louisville has found success has been their ability to be versatile at the guard position and play “by committee” rather than everything going through one guy.

Each night Johnson, Kimble, Perry, and McMahon all bring something to the table that they do really well. For Kimble, it’s scoring. For McMahon, it’s the ability to get from deep in a matter of seconds. For Johson, it’s playmaking. And for Perry, it’s the ability to defend and galvanize the team with energy.

However, as the coach said to Seth Davis, they do it by committee and they don’t do it at an elite level, or even really close to it and we saw it on full display in the second half. FSU went with a fairly similar gameplan as they did the first time around, using their bigger, longer, more athletic guards to overpower Louisville’s and play with a level of physicality that they thought Louisville couldn’t match for a full 40-minute game.

Unfortunately, we saw what Louisville’s guards at their worst look like throughout the second half, all at the same time. Ryan struggled with getting his shot off after hitting 3/3 to start as FSU blanketed him with length. Without other guys moving and getting open offensively, Kimble was forced to dribble the ball endlessly which more times than not led to turnovers or bad shots. Darius provided not much of anything as he played just six minutes. While Johnson was a turnover machine, showing his age on way to committing a season-high six turnovers.

There is no denying that when it comes to post-season play and excelling in March that you have to have strong guard play. Louisville has had a few good performances from each of their guards, but I don’t believe we’ve seen Mack get the best out of each one on the same night. With Louisville’s ability to get hot and make three’s, their elite depth and positional versatility, and size they’ve always got a chance to win, but if there’s not an improvement from each guard and a focus on bringing it all together, it’ll be a struggle to go on a deep tournament run.