Louisville basketball's five-game win streak comes to an end as the Cardinals fall 95-85 to the SMU Mustangs on the road. The Cardinals were once again led by true freshman Mikel Brown Jr., who scored a game-high 29 points on 11-of-18 shooting from the field and 4-of-8 shooting from downtown.
However, the Cardinals turned the ball over 17 times, which is a recipe for disaster against a good team like SMU. When fans watched this game and thought about one key area that lost them the game, they quickly turned to the defense. The Cardinals' defense has raised major questions all year long, and after this game, it showed why.
Louisville’s defense continued to struggle last night and got dominated in the paint once again. Fans took to social media after the game, expressing major concern about their defense moving forward and how it will impact them in the NCAA Tournament.
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One ugly trend returned in Louisville basketball's loss to SMU
It is hard to go on the road and win after you turn the ball over 17 times, but add Louisville losing the paint battle 46-30 and allowing SMU to shoot 58 percent from the field and 47 percent from the 3-point line, and it quickly becomes nearly impossible.
“You can’t go on the road and allow a team to shoot 58 percent from the field, 60 percent something from two, 47 percent from three, and win a tough road game,” Kelsey stated after the game. “We had 17 turnovers, which is uncharacteristic of our team. You can’t defend like that and turn the ball over like that. That is a recipe for losing a conference game on the road.”
The Cardinals' defense has been a major concern all season long, as many fans and experts have pointed out that this team's offense has the capability to be elite, but you simply can’t rely on the defense to win games, and that showed last night.
While SMU has a good offense and some elite scorers, Louisville had Final Four hopes entering the season, and allowing the Mustangs to shoot 58 percent from the field and 47 percent from the 3-point line isn’t going to help this team achieve its goals. Kelsey pointed out that the Mustangs were able to score off the dribble and in one-on-one situations, and while that definitely is true, if this team wants to make a run, something has to change defensively.
The Cardinals are still one game back from the four seed in the ACC standings and have just five games remaining. With Louisville losing last night, the Cardinals now face a lot of pressure to make a run in these final five games.
With North Carolina, Clemson, and Miami still on the schedule and all three games on the road like last night, Kelsey has to have this group playing much better defense if they want to win and try to not only climb the ACC standings but the NCAA Tournament seedings.