Louisville pulled out a tough one against Pittsburgh last night with the final score being 72-75 Louisville. The officiating was on another level and a complete shit show. I don’t think I have ever witnessed so many technicals for things that happen in a game routinely. Those refs took offense to Williams and Hugley having some back and forth and let it escalate to six technical’s being called. There would  be less foul calls whenever we played Cincinnati and those games were legitimate street fights. Regardless, I’ll give you my thoughts on what I saw below from Louisville team wise and player performances. I’ll quit complaining about the officiating.

                I was disappointed from Louisville defensively, but I think it exposed what we look like without Williams on the floor. Our assumption has been that Louisville struggles offensively without him, but the same should be said defensively. Louisville at the 5 spot is getting more clear when Williams is off the floor with how Curry has been performing, but defensively is bad and I know see why Mack has hesitated to give them more minutes. There were instances where both Curry and Wheeler could not play well off of screens that led to Pittsburgh breaking down the pac line and scoring in the lane. This will be something that needs to be corrected quickly. Pittsburgh is not good enough to be scoring 72 on Louisville. Hugley got what was his in the post, but Louisville gave up easy baskets due to this.

                Offensively, I think we continue to make strides in the right direction. Louisville is shortening up some of these scoring droughts that have cost them games. Hand up, I was wrong about Pittsburgh use of the zone and Louisville did struggle with it at times. Luckily, this didn’t last long and we were able to flash guys towards the free throw line to break this down. Pittsburgh showed a 1-3-1 late in the game, but Ellis was on fire at this point and nothing was stopping him. The 1-3-1 may have given us fits, but Louisville was able to shoot out of this. Louisville was able to clutch up with the last two main possessions with Curry scoring in the paint and Locke hitting the 3 that ended up being a dagger. I would have thrown a fit if Locke ended up missing that, but he’s been clutch with those 3s so I can’t say much. I say that more because I saw the look Locke gave at the beginning of that possession and not passing it to Ellis because he knew he wouldn’t get that ball back, but it worked out for us. The fan base may have been critical of this if he would have missed since Ellis was the hot hand during that game. I’ll touch on this more later, but Ellis stepped up in a big way and was a monster. The way he creates in the lane is something special. I have no clue how Mack is going to give the right minutes to the guards, but that’s why he makes the big bucks.

Player Grades:

Matt Cross (B) Matt finished with 9 points and 2 rebounds. Matt hit one three and created everything else differently. This seems to be consistent for him so I’ll grade it as such. He looked good defensively but didn’t do anything extra.

Sam Williamson (B+) Sam finished with 9 points and 5 rebounds. Sam looked a lot better defensively and it seemed like he actually knew where to be. The clip I think of is 12:20 in the second half where he worked around a screen and stayed on his man but he just hit a contested shot. I don’t think we would normally see that. He’s creating on his own offensively and that block at the end had me hyped.

Malik Williams (C-) Hugley worked him tonight in the post. Sorry. I feel like he got some bad calls and I really don’t care about the technical because the refs were ridiculous. He was limited minutes wise because of that, but Hugley kept beating him at the baseline scoring.

Noah Locke (B) That three was clutch, but I would have crucified him for not giving it to Ellis at the last possession that decided the game. He knew he want getting the ball if he passed it. Locke drives me nuts trying to hit shots mid range, but he still serves a big role offensively.

Jerrod West (B) Jerrod finished with 5 points, 5 rebounds, and 4 assists. Jerrod played good defense as normal and ran the offense. His stat line surprised me a bunch. He tried to be more aggressive defensively but he kept getting called on it, which was bullshit.

Sydney Curry ( B) Sydney finished with 8 points and 8 rebounds. Sydney definitely earned some playing time and showed up big in the possession before the Locke three. Sydney’s defense is horrible though. He is lost with screens and let this happen repeatedly. I counted three times at least.

El Ellis (A+) El finished with 18 points and 2 rebounds. El was hitting threes and created going into the lane. Looks like Russ Smith. He has to play at least twenty minutes moving forward. I’ll add a link of his highlights from the ACC Digital Network below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEXubJPWkh0

Dre Davis (B) Dre finished with 5 points and 2 rebounds. Dre played some solid defense and looked good getting into the lane. Everyone hated that transition lay up but I won’t hold that against him.

Mason Faulkner (B) Mason finished with 3 points and 4 assists. He looked good with limited minutes and looked better defensively. I have no clue what to do playing time with the guards. Good luck with that Mack.

                At the end of the night, Louisville won and goes 4-0 in the ACC. Louisville plays a struggling Florida State team Saturday then follows up next week with NC State and Pittsburgh. Williams and Hugley may legitimately fight, but I’m here for it. Louisville will need to fix some minor things before getting into an important stretch where Louisville will be challenged more in the ACC. Fingers crossed Louisville continues to win because it will jeopardize their tournament chances. All we can do is wait and see how Louisville plays against Florida State. Let’s hope they can stay healthy moving forward.

-degenerateCARD

Stats via ESPN.com

Video via ACC Digital Network Youtube Channel