Louisville basketball has been without its star point guard, Mikel Brown Jr., for the past seven games, and during that stretch, the Cardinals have been struggling to say the least. Louisville is 3-4 in that stretch and is 1-3 in their ACC schedule, and the road isn’t getting any easier.
The Cards got off to an incredibly slow start as UVA went up 14-0, forcing Louisville to play from behind the entire game. The Cards went on to lose 79-70, and fell to 12-5 on the year.
Pat Kelsey had a lot to say after the Cardinals' loss to the Cavaliers, but he delivered a blunt message that fans hope will mark the start of the tide turning.
Pat Kelsey admits Louisville basketball has " a lot of things to fix"
The Cardinals shot the ball well below 30 percent from the 3-point line yet again, while their defense allowed Virginia to shoot a whopping 41 percent from beyond the arc. Louisville’s offensive and defensive productivity has taken a massive hit since Brown went down, and now Kelsey is owning up to it and admitting they have a lot to fix.
“We’ve got a lot of things to fix,” Kelsey stated after the loss. “And I’m one of those crazy people that gets excited about that, I wanna throw up when we lose, but let’s freakin go.”
Since Brown went down with an injury, this offense has clearly lost its engine, as Louisville went from averaging 94.3 points per game while shooting 47.9 percent from the floor and 37.5 percent from the 3-point line to averaging 77 points per game while shooting 43.4 percent from the floor and 29.3 percent from the 3-point line.
As for the defense, it is just as bad. When Brown was healthy and on the court, Louisville allowed just seven threes per game, and opponents shot just 37.8 percent from downtown. Since Brown went out, the Cardinals are allowing the other team to shoot a whole four percent better at 41.8 percent while making nearly two more 3’s at 8.9 three-pointers per game.
The defense and 3-point shooting woes have been issues for the majority of the season, especially against good teams. Louisville shot an average of 25 percent from downtown against the Arkansas, Duke, Tennessee, and Virginia, while they gave up an average of 27.5 free throws per game, and it isn’t like they are fouling late in the game because they lost every game by nine points or more and by an average of 12.5 points.
So, to hear Kelsey admit Louisville has a lot to fix and is passionate is good to hear, but the Cardinals fans already knew that. Now they want to see the change and flip the season around. This team had one of the best odds to win the National Title entering the season, and now they have the seventh-highest odds to win just the ACC.
The Cardinals take on Pitt this weekend, then Virginia Tech the following Saturday, and then travel to Durham to face Duke and then Dallas to face SMU.