Louisville basketball shorthanded for Wednesday’s game

Another long pause appears to be in the books for Louisville basketball after a 16-day layoff from game action. Despite the fact that head coach Chris Mack is still not with the team as he recovers from Covid, all systems seem to be a “go” for Wednesday night’s matchup against Syracuse.

Assistant coach Dino Gaudio spoke to the media on Monday to address the state of the program and the status of the matchup with Syracuse.

While the game remains on, Gaudio says that the team will be without two scholarship players for the matchup.

While Gaudio would not comment on the identity of the two players, there will be reasonable suspicion to assume who the two are as the players go through warm-ups at the Yum! Center.

We can already rule out two of the culprits.

This is awesome news to receive. Syracuse is still fighting for an NCAA tournament berth and it won’t be an easy performance for the team coming off of over two weeks paused from game action. Carlik Jones and David Johnson have paced this team all season. They should provide the juice to at least compete with the Orange on Wednesday.

The Cardinals will take what they can get

For a team that has been ran through by Covid, Louisville will get their head coach back for practice Tuesday and the Cardinals will have two of their best players to participate in the matchup. The hope obviously is that this is the end of the line for pauses within the program for the season.

Missing two scholarship players will be difficult, but Louisville frankly needs to get some more game repetition in as the postseason fast approaches. The Cardinals have six games remaining on the schedule with a multitude of others postponed for the time being. This home stretch is very important.

Two players out will be an uphill climb. But Mack, Johnson, and Jones should be able to soften the blow.