Louisville’s two game winning streak was snapped last night by the Lipscomb Bison, who now improve to 8-5 on the season. With this loss, the Cardinals fall to 2-10 on the season with their only wins coming over Western Kentucky and Florida A&M.
A 2-10 start for first time Head Coach Kenny Payne is not ideal, but with all of the surrounding issues heading into this season it’s no surprise that this team is having such a delayed response to the new system.
The players seem to slowly be buying into Coach Payne’s system and if they can play in a way that exudes chemistry, then it is only a matter of time before this program starts to shift in the other direction.
Heading into this matchup against the Bison, the scouting report said to watch out for players like Jacob Ognacevic, Ahsan Asadullah, and Will Pruitt. Three guys who had an impact on this game in more ways than one.
Ognacevic finished the game with 16 points including one shot from deep. Asadullah finished the game with 10 rebounds and eight points, nearly a double-double. If Pruitt had played another half, he could have been on triple-double watch with seven points, five assists, and four rebounds.
While these three were productive for the Bison, it was 6-foot-3 guard Derrin Boyd who the Cardinals could not stop. Boyd finished with 23 points and went 4-for-5 from behind the arc.
Louisville’s El Ellis outscored him, finishing with 24 points, but it was not enough for the Cardinals to get the win. Outside of Ellis, the next highest scorer was Sydney Curry with 12. Louisville could not get it going offensively and could not stop the Bison defensively.
One final notable statistic from the game is that Louisville only had 10 turnovers and was able to score 18 points off of those turnovers. Losing the turnover battle has always been a factor for the Cardinals this season and if they maintain the ability to take care of the ball properly, that will put them in good situations to take control of games.