Quick hits from Louisville basketball’s ugly loss to Clemson

After a late night fight against Clemson, Louisville basketball came up short against Clemson in one of the team’s ugliest performances of the entire season.

It was a scrappy defensive battle that had all the makings of what you would expect out of a game scheduled just two days ago.

The Cardinals had three shot clock violations in the first half and a bunch of other offensive problems. But pesky defense and a cold shooting Clemson allowed them to hang around and take the lead into halftime. An exciting score of 22-21.

Louisville shot just 30 percent in the half as David Johnson, Josh Nickelberry, and Dre Davis combined for a woeful 0-for-11 shooting performance in what was a very gross level of offensive basketball.

One of the bright spots for the team was competitiveness on both ends of the floor. Even when shots were not going down, the whole team fought tirelessly for rebounds on the offensive and defensive ends.

One half? Fine. Two? Not sustainable.

One half of terrible offensive basketball was something Louisville could live with. The problem is… the second half had the exact same feel. The Cardinals shot 9-for-29 in the second half and there was really no positive play to speak of on offense. It was just one of those nights for them.

They shot 18-for-57 on a night that included 5-for-24 from three and 9-for-16 from the free throw line. It just wasn’t good enough on this night.

Louisville did a great job defensively. Clemson shot 36 percent in the game and still won as the Tigers got big performances from Al-Amir Dawes (15 points) and Aamir Simms (16 points, 9 rebounds).

Carlik can’t carry

In almost any game that the Cardinals have been close in, Carlik Jones has put the team on his back and led them to the victory they needed as others around him struggled. Not tonight.

Once that happened, Louisville was cooked. They should have packed their bags right then and gone home because not one player stepped up with his absent performance.

The senior could not get anything going with a 4-for-14 shooting game and it felt like he was as small of a factor as he has been all year.

But that is no knock on him. Jones has been a stud all season and for nobody to step up in just one situation is truly an embarrassment on Louisville’s part.

Despite the lackluster game, Jones was the only Louisville player in double digits (11 points) as he extended a streak of 36 straight games doing so; a streak that stems back to his Radford days.

David Johnson is a wild rollercoaster

It may have been Johnson’s worst performance of the season against Clemson. While not scoring well (4 points), he remained a non-factor on offense racking up zero assists and personally costing the team five turnovers.

If Carlik Jones cannot get going, Johnson is supposed to be the guy to pick up where he stumbles. But that did not happen on this night. The only other time Johnson was forced to lead the team in the past was when Louisville was blown out by Wisconsin in a game that Jones did not even play in. Johnson struggled then too.

It’s disappointing for a player who has been touted as an NBA lottery pick by a multitude of different media outlets recently. If he hopes to live up to those sky high projections, he simply needs to stop having games like he did tonight.

Charles Minlend starting to figure it out

After looking like a liability in his first two appearances for the Cardinals, Minlend looked like more of a factor against Clemson despite scoring just three points. He was active on the offensive glass and his lateral quickness to defend a dribbling offensive player just looked much better.

Clearly this is a player that head coach Chris Mack wants to get on the floor. He is still finding his feet and fans are getting the opportunity to see what his game is all about. He’s a role player that will scrap and outwork almost anyone on the floor for loose balls. He simply plays a tough brand of basketball.

The only thing we know is we don’t know much

We can be sure of what Carlik Jones is. He is a first-team All-ACC caliber of performer. But what to make of David Johnson and Jae’Lyn Withers on nights like this?

Withers was dominated by Clemson’s Simms in the paint. He did have 12 rebounds in the game, but that was really not representative to how poor Withers’ performance was in this contest.

Meanwhile, David Johnson was looking like the second part of one of the best backcourt duos in the country just a couple of weeks ago. But ,now, he is looking like an unhealthy mix of hot and cold from game to game. Johnson has scored 5 points or less in three of the past five games.

Louisville needs him down the stretch. Johnson looked hesitant to shoot the three against Clemson and simply does not look as confident from out there which has obviously limited his ability to score and create.

Overall

This is still a tournament team in all likelihood. The level of “madness” they can actually cause in approximately a month and a half remains in a great deal of question with performances like the ones on Wednesday night.

Side note… can we all agree 9 pm local time games should be shot into the sun? That was an interesting decision by the ACC to present the game for that time slot after the teams had just a couple days of notice to play one another.

Nevertheless, Chris Mack needs to give his team an identity. He also needs to assure that David Johnson’s slumps are not a permanent staple in games down the stretch.

The Cardinals need an answer.