The Louisville Cardinals have experienced a revival like no other the past two years in basketball. Pat Kelsey has provided a new start with his hiring in the 2024-2025 season.
He brought in star transfers like Chucky Hepburn and Terrence Edwards Jr that provided Louisville with a great foundation to be able to rebuild. The Cardinals ended with an 18 and 2 record in the ACC and finished second in the conference. This is an astounding difference to the prior year, where they finished last in the conference and only won 8 games the whole season. The trajectory completely changed upward when Kelsey became the coach.
The Cards have been trying to recreate the magical season that was formed last year. They started strong in the off-season picking up star transfers like Ryan Conwell, Isaac Mckneeley, and Adrien Wooley. These pieces helped to build what was predicted to be possibly the best back court in the country. It was shaping up to be a great season.
The season started off great, with Louisville even beating their rival Kentucky for the first time since 2020. They suffered a loss to a good Arkansas team, but bounced back with good wins vs. Indiana and Memphis.
However, it was the Tennessee game that Louisville’s solid season took a halt.
Mikel Brown Jr. sat out in this game due to a lower back injury that has been causing him some trouble. Louisville suffered a blowout loss against Tennessee that definitely lowered morale. Things have not gotten much better since this loss with defeats to an unranked Stanford, Duke after leading at halftime, and Virginia after a really slow start.
So what is Louisville’s main problem?
It has to be an offensive identity. Without Mikel Brown Jr., the cards do not have a system on offense. Currently, the system consists of passing the ball around the perimeter and shooting loads of threes. We are considered a 3 point shooting team, but when you shoot as much as the Cards do you should have a better shooting percentage than 34.8% from deep.
The cards have to develop a floor general while Mikel is absent. Until this happens, the offense will have trouble developing a proper system. It would also be beneficial to develop an interior game more. Sananda Fru is currently 77.8% for field goals. This is a promising stat that should be a good sign to feed him the ball more.
If Louisville is able to recover from injuries and start to form an identity on offense, the rebuild for the rest of conference play and going into the tournament can be promising.
