Game Thread [2022-23] Louisville

[aiw]

Between 5 and 13 games left

 

[rome8180]

Given the turnaround, falling just short of covering is fine. We probably barely prepped for them.

 

[Bullettoothtony]

Given the turnaround, falling just short of covering is fine. We probably barely prepped for them.

Agreed. Plus the way Louisville started felt a bit fluke-ish. First 7 minutes, 64% from the floor, 67% from 3. Ellis had 11 in 5 minutes. 18-9 lead.

We outscore them by 18 the rest of the half, and put them away early in the 2nd half. Essentially I feel like we won by 20 or so.

Edit: I realize of course they cut the lead to 10 a few times but it didn't feel tense, at least not to me. We clearly looked like a much better team.

 

[dukebluedevils05]

Had great seats, best I’ve ever had in Cameron, so that was cool. Watching that shitshow of a performance, not as cool.

Flip’s turnovers are maddening.

I <3 Proctor. He was working his ass off on defense. Offensively he’s getting there. Does he shoot it better off the dribble than he does in catch and shoot? Two of his makes tonight were a dance with the ball into a shot, yet he missed a couple open catch and shoot looks.

Felt like a big moment was Lively fumbling the ball out of bounds on a great look from Flip. They came down and scored right away and then we had some pressure. Lively had a great stretch in the first half then sat for a long period that I didn’t understand.

Mitchell was fun, other than the missed dunk right in front of me. Hope he comes back. I wanna get on the Whitehead bandwagon, but I’m not ready yet. I gotta see more. I’m still not a believer in his shooting.

Nolan and his family were definitely the center of attention. Everyone was going up to him/them tonight. Quinn was mobbed after the game for pictures. Sat in the grad student section, some lame chants and behavior.

 

[Pantone287]

Meanwhile, I'd forgotten how dead silent the upper crusties are. Such a bizarre contrast with the vibe from the TV broadcast. I literally felt self-conscious for clapping too loudly a few times tonight.

Proctor's defensive effort really does stand out in person. It's almost a foreign feeling seeing someone work that hard on D after the last few years.

 

[torontoduke]

Yeah - Proctor and Lively work hard on the defensive end. Lively great communicator from back end.

 

[childress22]

Lively had a great stretch in the first half then sat for a long period that I didn’t understand.

I think it was that during the period he sat, from 12:55 to 5:45 in the first half, we were busy going on an 18-4 run with Proctor-Grandison-Whitehead-Mitchell-Young. Scheyer didn't sub for 7 straight minutes because we were throttling them.

 

[Pantone287]

Also, in an otherwise pointless game, that was a somewhat encouraging rotation. Mitchell played just over half of his minutes at the 4, and Whitehead/Grandison got 40 minutes.

Might have just been a function of Flip being benched for longer than usual, though, as he didn't play any minutes at the 5. The reality is Young is still giving us too consistent of a boost to push out of the rotation.

I might be okay with Flip seeing fewer minutes in general, though. I imagine a big part of his virginal stretches is fatigue, and he's pretty negative when he's bad. Plus, I'm for anything we can do to fight our 9-minute-mark-collapse tradition.

 

[LastHearth]

A solid if unspectacular outing, probably a bit better than the efficiency ratings suggest since Louisville is playing better than their overall season ratings.

The low turnovers are nice to see, although the only team in the ACC worse at forcing turnovers than Louisville is ND. So I am not sure it means anything. My concerns about the offense remains. It seems when the other team is not playing tough and physical defense, we are fine running our offense, moving the ball around, finding the open man, etc. But our offense really gets bogged down when the other team is physical and tough and hindering our movements, and pushing us out from the spots that we want. When those things happen our players don't know how to respond, our ball movement stops, and it's just 1-1 iso plays or pull up jumpers with a hand in the face, or a turnover.

 

[rome8180]

Had great seats, best I’ve ever had in Cameron, so that was cool. Watching that shitshow of a performance, not as cool.

Flip’s turnovers are maddening.

I <3 Proctor. He was working his ass off on defense. Offensively he’s getting there. Does he shoot it better off the dribble than he does in catch and shoot? Two of his makes tonight were a dance with the ball into a shot, yet he missed a couple open catch and shoot looks.

Felt like a big moment was Lively fumbling the ball out of bounds on a great look from Flip. They came down and scored right away and then we had some pressure. Lively had a great stretch in the first half then sat for a long period that I didn’t understand.

Mitchell was fun, other than the missed dunk right in front of me. Hope he comes back. I wanna get on the Whitehead bandwagon, but I’m not ready yet. I gotta see more. I’m still not a believer in his shooting.

Nolan and his family were definitely the center of attention. Everyone was going up to him/them tonight. Quinn was mobbed after the game for pictures. Sat in the grad student section, some lame chants and behavior.

What, do you need him to shoot 60% for half a year or something?

 

[rome8180]

Personally, it feels like a lot of people are just digging in on his shooting based on some random reporting out of high school with absolutely nothing to back it up. In addition to the good form and great results, he's 93% from the line.

I can understand not being sold on literally any other aspect of his game but the shooting. Dribbling, defense, rim finishing, whatever.

 

[Pantone287]

I will say that his misses are often not shooter's misses. So weird to see a guy who's normally automatic randomly slam an open three long off where the rim meets the backboard.

 

[Pantone287]

Oh, meant to add, Kenny Payne just looks like a miserable coach to play for. I'm probably projecting somewhat based on how bad he's been, but something about his body language towards and way of talking to his players just screams both incompetent and condescending. I wonder if he'll loses the locker room at some point if things don't get better quickly.

 

[Devilsforlife]

Payne strikes me as a guy who is completely out of his depth and knows it deep down, but can‘t fully admit it to himself. I think he’ll be fired when Louisville sucks again next year.

 

[dukebluedevils05]

Oh, meant to add, Kenny Payne just looks like a miserable coach to play for. I'm probably projecting somewhat based on how bad he's been, but something about his body language towards and way of talking to his players just screams both incompetent and condescending. I wonder if he'll loses the locker room at some point if things don't get better quickly.

Absolutely right. Buddy of mine mentioned it to me at one point in the second half that he looked like a coach you wouldn’t want to play for. He had a moment late in the game when 15 took a deep shot, Payne threw his arms up and looked over at his bench to complain and 15 looked dead at him and watched it all unfold. The body language just seemed really poor in the moment.

 

[Pantone287]

I also noticed one time when their PG was bringing the ball up, Payne was making a scene trying to get him to swing the ball over to someone in particular (who wasn't wide open or anything). When the PG didn't/couldn't do it in time, Payne slumped into a dramatic hands on hips with head bowed pose for a full two seconds while his PG just stood there dribbling and waiting for the next instruction. He finally looked back up and started pointing out the next play, but with a comically exaggerated air of "whatever, who even cares now". Such odd behavior to see from a HC at this level.