Louisville basketball: 3 takeaways from senior night win over Virginia Tech

The seniors were honored and then balled out in their last home game as members of the Louisville basketball program, defeating Virginia Tech and claiming first place in the ACC.

Well if that wasn’t fun, I guess I clearly don’t know what fun is. We knew the day where we were forced to see goodbye to one of the Louisville basketball programs’ most beloved senior class would come.

It finally came on Sunday as the Cards welcomed Virginia Tech to town and damn was it great getting to celebrate three redshirt seniors in Ryan McMahon, Steven Enoch, and the 502’s own Dwayne Sutton as well as junior Jordan Nwora who was honored after announcing he’d graduate this summer, all of whom have meant so much to the program over the last few seasons. The Cards also celebrated two graduate-transfers in Fresh Kimble and Keith Oddo who have had big impacts on team 106 (both big and small).

The stage was set for an emotional day filled with magic, and that’s exactly what we got. While it wasn’t necessarily the prettiest performance from the Cards, we saw a lot of issues that plagued them this season addressed.

As the Cards struggled to get shots to fall early (as did Virginia Tech) and played nearly eight straight minutes of game action without a dead ball or foul, it looked like maybe just maybe we could be headed down the typical “sluggish start” route.

Instead, the Cards went the other direction. While Louisville struggled offensively they collectively locked in on the defensive end and made things more than challenging for Virginia Tech. During his post-game press conference, Chris Mack talked about the offensive woes for his team early on against Virginia Tech going as far to say “there was a lid on the basket in the first half” before praising them for their effort on the other end.

Mack went on to say:

"“I told our team in the locker room, I was proud of their fight. I thought that there was a lid on the basket in the first half and sometimes that wears on you both mentally and physically. You don’t get the same effort on the defensive end, and I didn’t think that was the case at all. I thought we continued to battle. We just could not put the ball in the hole. And in the second half, it started to open up a little bit. And I thought outside of losing Jalen Cone a couple of times, I thought our defense was on point. We made Alleyne work for his catches. There were a couple times where they were trying to post him in the long post, both Dwayne (Sutton) and Jordan (Nwora) did a great job, fronting him and not allowing it to go in easily where he’s really been effective all year long.”"

Despite those struggles, Louisville continued to push a struggling Virginia Tech and eventually was able to build a solid lead before putting the game away from good.

As Presley Meyer wrote after the game, it was obvious that Jordan Nwora was the MVP of the game (which we’ll get to) thanks to his 20 points and 12 rebounds as well as possibly the best defensive game of his three-year career.

Louisville now sits at 24-6 overall and 15-4 in the ACC with one game left to play and It seems the veteran group is once again finding their rhythm. Here are my three big takeaways from the Sunday night victory.