By Derek DeBurger

Louisville managed to hold onto a victory over the Winthrop Eagles. This is the first matchup and the first victory over Winthrop in program history.

Close…too close

After giving up the first bucket, Louisville went on a 6-0 run to take the lead.

Then the basket closed up for both teams, as they scored a combined 17 points over the next 10 minutes of game-time. During this time, Louisville was clearly the lesser team physically, as Winthrop made a conscious effort to put five shoulders into fives chests on every possession.

The offensive drought also correlates directly with Chucky Hepburn sitting on the bench, as the offense came to a screeching halt.

Once Hepburn came back into the game, Winthrop set screens at half court every offensive possession and hedged every screen the point guard tried to run in their own offensive sets. Louisville was at a disadvantage with Koren Johnson out for the second-straight game, and the Eagles tried to make Hepburn’s night difficult every minute he was out on the court.

After Louisville took the lead 14-13 with a strong performance by Khani Rooths, they wouldn’t trail for the rest of the game. However, the Cards didn’t run away with the game, either.

Fouls, turnovers and poor rebounding kept Winthrop in the game until the very end.

Louisville still led 35-27 at the half.

Leaning toward a victory

Louisville came out of the break with some adjustments to make Hepburn’s life easier. He was able to find James Scott for a dunk on a slipped screen to ease the pressure of Winthrop’s hedges.

Louisville’s defense also smothered the Eagles at times, forcing turnovers and drawing fouls. Nick Johnson fouled out in the second half, and every starter for Winthrop was in foul trouble by the end of the game.

Even with Louisville’s improved second half-performance, they still failed to put their foot on the throats of Winthrop and run away with the game. After growing the lead to 13 points, the largest of the game at that time, the Cards scored only three points over the next four minutes and let the Eagles cut the lead back down to single-digits.

Still, Louisville did pull away slightly, and won 76-61.

Readjusting expectations

For context, Winthrop is coached by Mark Prosser who was the top assistant under Pat Kelsey when he coached the Eagles. Matchups like this are often tough because the opposing team knows your scheme inside and out, and in this instance they have more experience running the same scheme.

Louisville won this game on talent and athleticism alone, and even then they should have won by more.

The same problems that were present week one of the season have not improved: Louisville gets run off the three-point line by everyone, they are either incapable or unwilling to meet or beat teams physically and they are a bad free throw shooting team. Louisville shot 26.9% from three and 65.4% from the line.

To make matters worse, this team does not know the offense as well as the Bahamas trip and exhibition games would have led to believe. Reyne Smith is a player with three years in Kelsey’s system, and he has played consistently well thus far. His play on the season and game-high 20 points gives hope that once the team as a whole nails down the system then there will be much improved offense.

Right now, that just is not the case.

While Louisville has shown every game this season that they’re actually a pretty good defensive team and a fantastic team at forcing turnovers, they invite teams to try to bully them down low. What’s worse is now that Louisville has this reputation, referees will likely let Louisville’s opponents get away with more because Louisville is perceived as a “weak” team. This is exactly what happened in the first half Friday until the refs cleaned things up.

There is a lot for Louisville to work on, but enough time to not hit the panic button yet.

The Cards advance to 3-1 on the season, the first time being two games over .500 since Jan. 28 2022.

Photo by Alex Woodard