By Derek DeBurger
The tenure of head coach Kenny Payne gets muddy, but Louisville’s loss to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Wednesday may be the worst of the era.
After winning the opening tip-off, forward Brandon Huntley-Hatfield turned the ball over, leading Irish guard Braeden Shrewsberry to hit his first of many three-pointers. Notre Dame then pushed their lead to six before guard Skyy Clark—in his first game back from a not fully healed broken rib—helped tie the game up at 12-12. One mistake turned into two, into four, into seven, until before you knew it Louisville was down 13 points. And yet, the Irish proceeded to go cold on offense. This gave the Cards enough of an edge to cut the lead to as little as four.
Louisville would trail 25-31 at the half.
Huntley-Hatfield redeemed his play in the second half through a quick basket off of a cut—a look Notre Dame gave up most of the night—but slowly the Irish pushed the lead back up to an 11. Louisville’s offense then woke up, scoring 11 points in just over a minute. The problem, however, was that Notre Dame’s offense kept up with the scoring pace and the lead never dipped below eight.
Out of the under-eight timeout, Notre Dame experienced an offensive explosion that robbed all momentum, virtually ended the game, and released several boos upon the crowd.
Louisville would lose 50-72.
There was no excuse for the result of Wednesday’s game.
Any and all criticism cannot, and should not, fall on the players. Ty-Laur Johnson was healthy and available, yet saw the court for 18 minutes. His effort was not overly effective while on the court due to the speed and quickness of Notre Dame guard Markus Burton, but a two-guard lineup of Johnson and Clark would’ve been a great way to attack the aggressive Irish defense.
Notre Dame doubled almost every post-touch that the Cards got, and they only passed out of it twice. The first pass was late and resulted in a turnover, the second resulted in an easy layup. The Cards should’ve continued to attack that, making it an emphasis of the offense until they forced the Irish to adjust.
The defense of the Cards was also just abysmal outside, yet it always is. The Cards ranked dead-last in the country in open threes given because they never adjust to guard shooters. Notre Dame started the game shooting five-of-seven from deep, then missed their next six shots before ending the game shooting 12-of-27. During all of those periods, Louisville’s defensive pressure and closeouts on shooters never changed, it’s just that some shots went in and some didn’t.
Louisville falls to 8-19 on the season, 3-13 in the ACC, and 12-47 under coach Payne.
Photo Courtesy // Chris Carter, U of L Athletics
