UofL's new starting lineup is quite literally making the difference...what you should know about UofL for Jan 14
Against Pittsburgh and North Carolina, Louisville experimented with a new starting lineup that had barely played together. In those two games, this lineup proved to be quite volatile, while the rest of UofL's lineups managed to provide some stability. Before I get into this, here are the stats profile for the last 3 games and the season to date:
Stats Profile vs Miami
Stats Profile vs Pittsburgh
Stats Profile vs UNC
Stats Profile, Season to date through Jan 12
What You Should Know: As you can see in Table D in the Pitt and UNC profiles above, UofL's new starting lineup of Cunningham/Fore/Sutton/Nwora/Williams played more than any other in these two games, with widely divergent results. They played 21 possessions against Pitt and were outscored by 5 points. Against UNC, they played 17 possessions and outscored the Tarheels by 17 points. They swung from an adjusted margin of -0.15 points per possessions against Pitt to +1.24 against UNC! Meanwhile, all other UofL lineups were a +2 in 58 possessions against Pitt and +4 in 45 possessions against UNC, so all other lineups were much more stable.
What Is Happening? Prior to starting against Pitt, this group had played only 14 possessions together all season, so there wasn't a good sample to define how they would play, and I don't think we know any more after seeing these two performances. There were some consistencies between the Pitt and UNC games for the starters:
They shot well in both games, with an eFG% of 69% against Pitt and an otherworldly 105% (!!!) eFG% against UNC
They showed the ability to rebound well, getting 40% of the offensive rebound oppportunities against Pitt and 90% of the defensive rebound opportunities against UNC
They manged to fix some major issues between the 2 games as well:
Pitt had an eFG% of 60% against them, but they held UNC to 36%
They turned the ball over on a whopping 38% of their possessions against Pitt, but only 12% against UNC
The rest of UofL's lineups have shown some consistency through 3 ACC games. They have shown tendencies to:
Rebound well: offensive rebound rate of 40% vs Miami, 36% vs Pitt, and 38% vs UNC, compared to 33% for the season for UofL
Commit fouls: they fouled on 24% of Miami's possessions, 36% vs Pitt, and 27% vs UNC, compared to 20% for the season
If the rest of UoL's lineups can provide stability this season, and the starters can find some consistency, then UofL will have an excellent case for a good NCAA tournament bid.
What Does This Mean? We have no idea how good the starters really are; based on these performances they are somewhere between terrible and legendary. However, UofL does have some clear strengths and weaknesses and should see those play out in conference play. The next 4 games will be interesting as UofL plays 4 teams in the top 32 nationally in drawing fouls (BC, Georgia Tech, Pitt, and Wake Forest). UofL will need their starting lineup to perform well, since the rest of the team has tended to foul.
UofL may want to have a backup plan in case this mercurial starting lineup has a subpar game again. In that case, UofL does have some lineups that have performed consistently well this season. A prime candidate to get more minutes is this lineup of Cunningham/Perry/King/Sutton/Enoch. This group is a +23 in 71 possessions this season, and most recently outscored UNC 6-0 in just 4 possessions. This group has not been outscored by more than 2 points in any game, although they have seen limited time in the last month. They draw fouls at a high rate, which can help stabilize UofL's offense against tough opponents. If UofL's starters continue their boom-or-bust style, it's useful to have a steadier group to help calm things down.
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