It’s been an extremely difficult string of events over the course of the past month for Louisville basketball who just can’t seem to get their footing.
With every small glimpse of hope and a potential upward trajectory, there always seemed to be a correlating negative impact on Louisville’s program.
That much was confirmed once again on Tuesday when the Cardinals’ game against Virginia Tech was canceled after the team had already arrived in Virginia for their matchup against the Hokies.
Wednesday's game at Virginia Tech has been canceled.https://t.co/z8qWcZ2y7l
— Louisville Men's Basketball (@LouisvilleMBB) March 2, 2021
A difficult turn of events for a team that could really use some positive energy. A potential opportunity for a resume building win to close out the season was ripped away and guarantees that Louisville will come up short of playing 20 games this year.
Let’s revisit the painful timeline over the past month
Feb. 3 – Louisville’s game against Syracuse is postponed following a positive test within the program. The Cardinals had already traveled to New York before discovering the postponement and flying back to Louisville.
Feb. 17 – Potential return to action is postponed due to another positive test within the program on the day of a home matchup against Syracuse.
Feb. 20 – Louisville is stomped by 45 points at the hands of North Carolina in their return to the floor; Malik Williams makes his season debut in limited action.
Feb. 23 – Guard David Johnson misses game against Notre Dame due to a non-Covid illness; Louisville still wins.
Feb. 27 – Forward Malik Williams leaves early in a thrilling win against Duke after re-aggravating his foot injury; head coach Chris Mack goes on record to say that the hope is that he just had his foot stepped on and would be fine.
Mar. 1 – Malik Williams is announced to be out for 4-6 weeks with foot injury, effectively ending his season.
Mar. 2 – Louisville’s potential resume-building matchup against Virginia Tech is canceled due to Covid troubles with the Hokies.
So, yeah. Not great. It’s been a bit of a disaster recently with much of the problems being out of the team’s control.
With the team having just one last game Saturday against Virginia, the Cardinals will get the chance for one last resume-building matchup. Don’t expect it to go as planned; not much has for this team recently.
Things really couldn’t get much more unfortunate for the Cardinals who will have never gotten the chance to play with their best starting five for a complete game with Williams going down with injury.
Will the bad luck continue heading into the postseason for the Cardinals?