By Derek DeBurger
Louisville suffered one of the worst losses in the Kenny Payne era against the DePaul Blue Demons on Saturday.
From the tip, the Cards looked flat. The offense — the one area that has looked competent under Payne — was stagnant. The only player to move at any given time was the ballhandler; everyone else on offense just stood around and waited to get the ball.
Louisville has never looked impressive defensively under Payne, but with the offensive woes, the Cards were even more dejected than normal. Even when the Cards started to get back into the game, and look more engaged, the Blue Demons still gashed whatever defensive looks the Louisville tried.
The lone positive that I can take away from this game is that they didn’t give up in the second half. The Cards ended the first half by turning the ball over and letting a DePaul big take it coast-to-coast to push the lead to 16 right at the buzzer. After such a devastating blow, it would’ve been easy for Louisville to roll over and look forward to the plane ride home. Instead, they came out of the locker room as the hungrier team, cutting into the lead very quickly. The problem with this glass-half-full view of the game is that DePaul simply picked up where they left off.
DePaul won this game 75-68, but the final score doesn’t show just how one-sided the game was. At one point in the second half DePaul held a 19-point lead. The Blue Demons finished shooting 51% from the field when there was no indication going into the game that they were capable of doing so against a college basketball team.
For yet another game, Ty-Laur Johnson came off the bench. Johnson needs to see the court as soon as possible to try and get the Cards off on the right foot. Johnson once again finished with a game-high five assists, but he is still not in the starting lineup.
I don’t know how else to put it, but we are just not up to the standard of what Louisville basketball should be.
The Cards extend their road-losing streak to 21 games en route to reaching a 4-5 record on the year.
