Louisville men’s basketball extends road losing streak in 53-77 loss to Virginia

By Derek DeBurger

The Louisville men’s basketball team has now extended their road game losing streak to two full years—21 games—with their loss to the Virginia Cavaliers in Charlottesville.

Coming into Wednesday’s game, the Cards were very shorthanded. With ongoing injuries to JJ Traynor and Dennis Evans and newer injuries to Tre White and Emmanuel Okorafor, there were only seven scholarship players available for the game.

Even with just seven scholarship players, the Cards came out to a pretty good start. Louisville was able to pass the ball effectively and score when they got good looks inside. Defensively, the Cards were able to prevent Virginia from looking so much better than they normally do—this season at least, so-so. As the game went on Virginia’s defense slowly stifled Louisville’s scoring attempts, with drought after drought mounting and the lead growing out of reach. By the half, Virginia led 37-22.

At the very beginning of the second half, Louisville made a slight push to make the game closer than it had been. Virginia once again, however, woke up and buried any hopes the Cards might have had.

Louisville would go on to lose 53-77.

Outside of a couple of strong efforts at the beginning of each half, Louisville was outmanned and outcoached for the vast majority of the game. Virginia was just miles better.

Even Brandon Huntley-Hatfield, someone who has emerged as the Cards no-brainer first option on offense, was held to nine points. Only Curtis Williams and Mike James reached double-digits. Williams’ 14 points was a career-high for the promising freshman.

It’s only the third month of the season, but Louisville’s postseason hopes are already all but dead. Louisville is so bad that when teams play their NET ranking drops after a win. If the teams in the ACC want to improve their resume come tournament time, they’ll need to focus on, among other things, a blowout.

Louisville drops to 5-8 on the season, and with the thick of conference play already upon us, there may not be too many more wins left on the schedule.