By Mark Bacon
Last night, the No. 19-ranked University of Louisville basketball team crushed Kennesaw State 94-57. The Cards again demonstrated their ability to beat cupcake teams with their offensive prowess. Players know it; Coaches know it. But Coach Rick Pitino is trying to impress upon his players is that those days are coming to an end.
- “We are in need of some good competition,” Pitino said as he walked into his postgame news conference. “. . . It’s not any fun for you to watch; it’s not any fun, these lopsided victories. But, that being said, this team, with all new players, it’s good to have these games to pick up things and work on things, because the competition that lies ahead is immense. There are going to be a lot of one-point and two-point games coming up.”
- As a result of playing yet another inferior opponent, Pitino used the evening as a teaching opportunity. U of L played match-up zone on every possession. It wasn’t always pretty. Young players are still struggling with the assignments—particularly the 3 and 4 spots—and knowing when to bump opponents to the outside, and who covers opponents flashing into the zone’s seam.
- “We tried to play all zone tonight. You can see that we’re not where we were last year,” Pitino said. “Donovan’s very confused. Ray (Spalding) is very confused. Jaylen (Johnson is confused.) We’ll just keep working on it. It’s good experience in that regard. . . . We’re going to be 85 percent man (defense) this year. . . . We’re still getting beat, Q got beat too much off the bounce. We’ve got to shore that up.”
- Kennesaw State had 11 turnovers against 12 for U of L; they also had 8 steals vs. 6 for U of L. Cupcakes not only cause cavities, they can create bad habits.
- There were some spectacular moments. Several highlight-reel dunks by Donovan Mitchell, fantastic lobs from Quentin Snider, and another hot shooting night for the Cards, who shot better than 50 percent for the eighth time this season. That matches the number of times they did it all last season.
- In addition to Damion Lee’s team leading 18 points, Louisville got 16 points on 8 of 10 shooting from Chinanu Onuaku, and 13 from Trey Lewis. Mitchell had 10, and Snider had 9 points and a season high 8 assists.
- The Cards’ 40 field goals were the most they had made in a game since 2010. There’s a danger of forgetting that, in most games, offense won’t be enough, Pitino said after the game.
- “Offensively, we’re a dangerous team, so tonight what I didn’t like is we tried to win with offense,” Pitino said. “And we did. But I would like to see us play a better matchup zone than we did tonight.”
I would like to see quality opponents; gaining weight from all the cupcakes Louisville feeds us.
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