Louisville basketball: 3 positive takeaways from loss to Virginia
By Jacob Lane
Louisville basketball got Virginia’d on Saturday but there’s a lot to be optimistic about.
On the Big Red Louie Podcast this past week, my good friend and partner-in-crime here at BRL, Presley Meyer, gave what could be the best analogy ever when it comes to Virginia for Louisville basketball.
“It’s like going to the dentist. Nobody wants to do it, but it’s mandatory twice a year.”
Saturday was no different for the Cards than any other time before, even as they defeated Virginia nearly a month prior in an offensive thriller. This time, Louisville had to head out on the road to play a team on a seven-game winning streak at one of the nation’s toughest places to play.
Against Virginia Tech nearly a week prior, Louisville showed for potentially the first time in the final stretch of ACC play the ability to play at a high level on both ends of the floor without letting one side affect the other.
Chris Mack called that game by Jordan Nwora arguably his “most complete game as a Cardinal” and it gave Louisville fans hope that the up and down season the team had-had could still lead to a deep run in March.
There’s been plenty of reason to doubt Team 106, but each time we have they’ve bounced back. Against Virginia, I wanted to see another game where they were strong mentally and unshaken by what another team did to them.
While it came in a loss, I was excited by what I saw from Louisville – especially in the second half. Getting down to teams by double-digits is never a good thing, but that against Virginia is nearly a death sentence.
After leading by as many as eight in the first half, Lousiville’s defense struggled for a big enough stretch to let Virginia take a commanding double-digit lead in the second half. Too many times the Cards have folded in that same scenario, but in the season finale, they didn’t.
Louisville made a key adjustment (which we’ll take about below) and fought back before ultimately dropping the game by three after a few terrible mistakes by their senior guards. Without a healthy Malik Williams, the Cards fought back in a major way and showed fans that there is still reason to be excited and hopeful about this team’s ability to win in the tournament.
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s take one final look back at Virginia and find three positive takeaways.