LOUISVILLE, KY—The beauty was merely ending as Louisville guard Ryan Conwell caught it on the left wing and rose up to make an open 3 that was more of a testament to the possession that Louisville had put together than anything.
The previous 10 seconds included seemingly every Louisville player touching it, drawing in a defender and keeping the line moving. It was the type of play that Louisville coach Pat Kelsey likely wishes he could bottle up and repeat every possession. It was the type that indicated that Conwell’s shooting slump didn’t have to define his night at the KFC Yum! Center on Wednesday. The beauty of what had just happened in front of the Louisville student section was a reminder of why Louisville always has a chance.
This group has the potential to have dynamic guard play on any given night and has more talented guards on the floor than just about anyone it will face. Don’t forget about the depth that it demonstrated as it won decisively on Wednesday while Conwell went 4-for-14 from the field, star point guard Mikel Brown went 1-for-7 and Kasen Pryor saved the day with 10 points on 5-for-6 shooting after playing sparingly prior to Wednesday while sophomore forward Khani Rooths went for a career-high for points in an ACC game to complement him.
“I think that just shows how much depth we have,” Louisville guard Isaac McKneeley said. “I think that just shows our starting five can get it done, but then we got people that could be in the starting five coming off the bench as well, so there's no drop off whenever we go to our bench, and I think that's what makes us so good.”
A true evaluation of this Louisville team had to be paused from Dec. 14–the date it lost Brown to an injury–to Jan. 26–the day Brown returned to the lineup with a 20-point performance in a Louisville win against Virginia Tech. Now this group is fair game. It still feels as if trying to decipher the depth of the run Kelsey’s team can make in the first and second weekend of the NCAA Tournament is reminiscent of trying to predict the outcome of a blind date, though.
It’s the type of group that can’t be counted out of anything because of its backcourt of two potentially special guards in Brown and Conwell. Its depth is good enough there to indicate that it can get a big night of someone else like McKneeley, capable lefty off the bounce scorer Adrian Wooley or swiss-army knife Ja’Vonne Hadley if need be. When that group is flowing like it was in that individual possession and a few others like it on Wednesday night, it’s hard to think that there’s many teams in the country that can beat this No. 24 ranked Louisville team.
“We’ve got to play a perfect game against teams like this,” Notre Dame coach Micah Shrewsberry said in an indicting statement on his own team and a complement of Kelsey’s before later going back on the comment. “I don't think it has to be perfect, but your competition level has to be high.”
That can be true for a team like Shrewsberry’s, although Kelsey’s hasn’t earned quite enough trust to indicate that it's worthy of being ranked much higher than it currently is. It can transcend that at any given moment, but Kelsey’s team certainly didn’t necessarily do that on Wednesday night.
The outcome was good in itself as Louisville took down Notre Dame 76-65 and moved to 6-4 in league play with its second-consecutive win by double digits as well as its fourth in the last five games, but it wasn’t exactly the type of trouncing that it’s capable of. Shrewsberry’s Markus Burton-less team–which is now 2-8 in league play–hung around a little too long, got a few too many timely offensive rebounds and shot it a little too efficiently from 3-point range to leave a great taste in Kelsey’s mouth.
It’s February and winning is difficult. Winning by double digits is more difficult. Louisville keeps doing each of those things consistently, yet it still can’t shake a few trends that appear to limit its ceiling if they continue when it matters most. Wednesday night, it was its lack of an ability to start fast–which resulted in Notre Dame going up 10-2 on it early.
“I think I’m gonna have the guys put their left shoe on first before the right shoe, and the guys that wear undershirts don’t wear undershirts and the guys that part their hair on one side, let’s try the other side,” Kelsey said. “We haven’t changed anything we do, I think our warmups have been phenomenal.”
The concern of slow starts doesn’t appear to have any long-term roots, although a few others do. Louisville has been outshot from 3-point range in six of its eight games against top-50 opponents. Its top-50 opponents are shooting 34.6% from 3-point range against it while the Cardinals are shooting 29.6 against top-50 teams.
The problem; Louisville attempts more shots from 3-point range relative to its total field goal attempts than anyone in the country, its No. 13 in the country in the percentage of its points that come from 3-point range and it’s No. 56 in the country in the percentage of its opponents’ points that come from 3-point range–as well as No. 16 in the ACC in 3-point defensive efficiency. Its 3-point defense has to be better--particularly considering its struggles on the interior at times.
Those numbers–which indicate on the surface that Kelsey’s team has tendencies that could be considered 3-point reliant, although they haven’t necessarily directly correlated to results in league games–don’t bode all that well. That paired with Louisville out-rebounding its top-50 opponents in just one of its eight games against them and Cardinals’ big man Sananda Fru averaging just four points on four field goal attempts in those games has resulted in Louisville going for a 3-5 record against its top-50 opponents.
Louisville’s Wednesday-night win demonstrated a number of those flaws, yet it ended in this group’s general ability shining through and it finding a way to win without its best. Perhaps that says as much about it and its floor as any of its big-picture numbers.
Who knows how this all ends or if Louisville's dynamic elements can show up when it needs them the most, but it's hanging its hat on what it showed Wednesday night for now.
“Proud of our guys,” Kelsey said. “We won the margins.”
