(Photo courtesy @UofLSports)
I’m convinced that sluggish is the theme of the day if you are a Louisville fan. First we watched our football team win in sluggish fashion and then the Basketball team follows that theme in their semi-final game of the Hall of Fame Tip Off classic with a sluggish win over Fairfield. The Cards beat the Stags 71-57 in what was their worst performance of this young season. Regardless of how it was won the Cards are 5-0 and have now won 21 straight dating back to last season. They will now be competing in the Championship game of this tourney tomorrow against North Carolina and will be looking for their 27th title in a regular-season tournament. Louisville is now 156-37 in non-conference games under Coach Pitino.
Coach Pitino pretty much summed up this one today with his comments after the game: “Tonight we were just flat in every phase of the game,””We were flat offensively with only nine assists. Our two point guards turned it over eight times, which they haven’t been doing. We didn’t do the little things necessary to exploit the weaknesses of Fairfield. We were late to the glass a lot. A lot of things were disturbing but we’ll go ahead.” It wasn’t the crisp, business like group that we have seen through the first four games of the season. Perhaps it was nerves from the first road trip of the season or maybe just one of those off days. For as long as I can remember the Louisville basketball team always has one or two games during the season where they play down to their competition. Hopefully today was just on of those occasions.
From their 14 turnovers, 26 fouls, and the poor shooting (38%) this one just wasn’t much fun to watch.
The positives from this game was the balanced scoring with Wayne, Chris, Russ and Montrezl scoring in double figures while Chane had 8 and Luke had 9 respectively. The rebounding was a little better and it was good to see Montrezl crashing the boards with 12 rebounds. And the free-throw shooting was better as the team shot 74% from the charity stripe. It was also good to see Terry Rozier come into this game and have some production. He would finish with 3 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 assist. His confidence will continue to build off of these minutes of PT. We will need Rozier by seasons end.
Like with the football team it’s really hard to complain about a win. Ugly or not a win is still better than a loss and I think the sluggish performance today will be a great teaching moment for Coach Pitino and his staff. They can use some of the things the guys did wrong today to help them improve for tougher games down the road. The environment of this tournament will also help this group in the long run. Tomorrow they will have a very tough test against a very talented and athletic North Carolina group. Like they played down to the competition today I expect them to play up to it in the next game. I expect a battle in the Hall of Fame Tip Off Championship and It will be the best game of the year so far.
