Louisville Crushes Coppin State to Advance to 2-1
By Caleb Hall
Louisville started sloppy but managed to finish off Coppin State, 61-41
The Louisville Cardinals and Kenny Payne needed a win against Coppin State, and they got it in a big way. The game looked very sloppy early on, and the entire first half did not have much to write home about. But the Cardinals made some three pointers and played good enough defense to have a 32-21 lead at halftime. The 2nd half looked a lot better for Louisville, but they still had some moments where they looked like a bad basketball team. However, they looked a lot better on rotations in the 2nd half and even looked like a competent basketball team at times.
Coppin State is not a good basketball team and if Louisville beat them by anything less than 20 then it would be eyebrow raising. They will be the worst team that the Cardinals will play all season and they will need to play a lot better if they even want a shot at being competitive against #18 Texas on Sunday.
Mike James once again had the team high in points at 12, and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield looked even more improved from the past few games as he had 6 points with 7 rebounds. Hatfield was husting and playing hard tonight, which is all fans want from Hatfield.
The offense was confusing at points, as they wanted to shoot more jumpers and threes than driving towards the lane. Points in the paint is where Louisville should attack, and the fact that they are wanting to settle for tougher shots is pretty confusing.
Louisville covered and won a basketball game, so I guess that is all you can ask for at this point. But Sunday’s game against Texas should show us how far along this basketball team really is.