Where's the improvement for Louisville?
The Cards just can't sustain anything positive
As recently as 2.5 weeks ago, I thought that Louisville was starting to build a little momentum towards respectability. Over a 5 game stretch, Louisville had games against Syracuse, Wake Forest, and Clemson where they were competitive thanks to spreading the floor on offense. Even in blowout losses to UNC and Pittsburgh, metrics indicated the Cards were generating better shots than earlier in the season but got very unlucky to miss so many.
Over the last 4 games, the offense has been largely competent. The competition has been bad, but Louisville is still scoring at a higher rate than they did at any stretch this season. However, Louisville has been getting some incredible outside shooting from Jae’lyn Withers over this stretch (12-21, 57%) and hasn’t been able to capitalize on this at all. The issue is that the Cards’ defense has been atrocious, and nobody else on the team has stepped up…with one exception. I’ll get into that shortly.
Overall, Louisville’s record this season seems to be a continuation of the collapse after Chris Mack’s resignation last season. Some basic analysis reveals just how much worse things have gotten compared to that stretch, and frankly makes me concerned about a turnaround any time soon.
I’ll explain all of these in this free article for my Louisville subscribers.
The offense is OK
According to Bart Torvik’s team page for Louisville, the last 4 games have largely been in line with how the team has played since the Western Kentucky win in terms of Adjusted Offensive Rating. This stat adjusts for opponent, and Louisville has posted a rating of 102.7 or better per 100 possessions in 3 of the last 4. That’s similar to how the Cards were scoring early in conference play, if you account for the better opponents in those earlier games.
The injury to Brandon Huntley-Hatfield may have been a blessing in disguise as it forced Louisville to play more “spread” lineups with Traynor and Withers spotting up for three from the forward spots. These lineups had been the most effective pre-BHH injury, and have been steadily performing well on offense with more time. These lineups have been scoring about 108 points per 100 possessions over the last 2 months thanks to 40% shooting from deep. If you look at just the last 4 games, they are at 106 points per 100 on 38% shooting from three, so largely the same production.
The biggest issue I see is that there really hasn’t been much growth or improvement. The better lineups have played more, but the lineups haven’t really improved at all, and none of the team’s problems around turnovers or defense have really improved. UofL is last in the ACC in turnover rate in conference play, committing a turnover on 23.5% of possessions. Georgia Tech is next to last at 18.9%; Louisville has only 1 ACC game where they were lower than that rate. That’s how you can shoot 40% from deep and struggle to stay within 10 points of most opponents.
But the defense very much isn’t OK
The other significant and persistent issue is defense. Even adjusting for opponent strength, Louisville’s defense has been worse in ACC play than non-conference. Since Jan 1, only Syracuse and Georgia Tech have failed to break 50% on twos against Louisville. Those are also the only two opponents who failed to score at least 111 points per 100 possessions against the Cards. Nearly every ACC team has had their most efficient offensive game against either Louisville or Notre Dame this season.
Louisville offers no resistance at the rim. Opponents are hitting 66% there for the season, and ACC opponents have hit 70% since January 1st. Louisville allows 75% shooting at the rim in transition and 68% in halfcourt offense over that stretch, so nothing is working.
Over the past 4 games Louisville has allowed 66% shooting at the rim. None of those opponents are better than 84th in offensive efficiency per KenPom, and two are 250th or worse. In FG% at the rim, they rank 307th (Boston College), 210th (Notre Dame), 273rd (Georgia Tech) and 69th (Florida State). Louisville turns them into top 25 offenses by being completely porous in interior defense.
It’s staggering that a team that is 12th in D-1 in average height can’t defend the rim at all. There are 7 players on the Louisville team listed at 6’8” or taller; they have combined to play just over 2700 minutes and have 46 blocks. There are 30 D-1 players with 46 or more blocks this season, and none has played more than 825 total minutes.
There is one potential bright spot in recent games, however.
One newcomer showing signs of life
Kamari Lands may be starting to figure things out a bit. Over the past 4 games, Louisville is +12 with him in and -30 with him out. The team has been shooting incredibly well with Lands in; that’s not entirely due to him, but he’s certainly helping. Lands has an incredible 74% effective FG% over the last 4 games, including 6 of 10 from deep. He also has posted more assists than turnovers in that time frame. Louisville has not been outscored in Lands’ minutes in any of the last 4 games.
Incredibly, Roosevelt Wheeler is the only other Cardinal who has played at last 50 possessions over the last 4 games with a positive +/- in that time. However, almost 60% of his time overlaps with Lands, and excluding his time with Lands UofL has been outscored. Louisville’s performance with Lands in the game lately hasn’t been dependent on any specific teammates or lineups. Lands is starting to show that he can be a contributor on an improved Louisville team.
A massive dropoff from last season
One thing I’ve seen throw out lately is the idea that Louisville’s program had already collapsed last season and Kenny Payne inherited a mess. The vibes around the program were awful, and the win/loss record was a disaster after Chris Mack resigned, but the team was still playing MUCH better than this season’s team.
After Mack resigned on January 26th last season, Louisville went 2-10. However, 11 of those 12 games were against teams in the top 75 per KenPom. The ACC wasn’t great last year, but the only truly bad team the Cards played in the final month and a half was NC State in the ACC Tournament. What’s more, Louisville was actually competitive against the better ACC teams. They had 6 losses by single digits to ACC teams in the top 75 (Including #8 Duke and 2 to #16 UNC), 4 double digit losses to top 75 team, 1 win over a top 75 team, and 1 win over #156. Bart Torvik’s website allows you to look at analytics for specific date ranges. From Jan 26th onward, Louisville rated 132nd in the nation. They were average on offense and average on defense, and weren’t turnover-prone.
This season Louisville has been a disaster. Torvik’s site rates Louisville as 302nd in the nation (310th on offense and 258th on defense). Their 3 wins have been over teams ranked 167th, 208th, and 357th in KenPom. Of Louisville’s 7 losses by single digits, only 2 have come to teams in the top 150 and the best is #66 Wake Forest. Of their 13 losses by double digits, 3 are to teams outside the top 150 in KenPom.
Louisville did lose 7 of their top 10 players (by minutes played) to graduation or the transfer portal, but they were allowed to bring in transfers as well. The NCAA had already announced that they weren’t planning to do postseason bands punishing players who weren’t around when violations were committed, and the most recent IARP decisions were favoring leniency. Louisville added a former top-100 recruit as a transfer, 1 as a redshirt, and 2 more as incoming freshmen.
The fact that the program has collapsed this season is inescapable, and the program is in much worse shape than it was even last year. There has been very little progress during the season (especially addressing the weaknesses evident from the very first week) and it’s tough to pinpoint what might be a strength that the team or coaching staff can build on.
I don’t fault any fan who thinks Kenny Payne should be fired; everything about this team says that the coaching staff is not putting the team in position to succeed. He won’t be fired, and I’m afraid that future years are just going to delay the return of this program to prominence. Louisville hired a first-time head coach because of his ability to recruit and connect with players; neither of those has resulted in any positive momentum. If the Louisville program is going to be a laboratory for Kenny Payne to learn to coach, then the expectations need to be drastically lowered and the NCAA Tournament might be a realistic goal within 4 years. Other coaches in similar spots (Dan Hurley at UConn, TJ Oetzelberger at Iowa State, Brad Underwood at Illinois, Mick Cronin at UCLA) turned things around quickly and did not see the programs bottom out under their watch. Louisville didn’t have to subject themselves to this, and thinking that they now need to suffer through it because of the hire seems counter-productive.
Now all that’s left for Louisville fans is to wait for the transfer portal and hope for some miracles there.