Louisville Basketball: Takeaways from Cardinals upset loss to Texas Tech
The Cardinals need to figure out different ways to utilize Jordan Nwora
Jordan Nwora is a National Player of the Year candidate for a reason; the 6-foot-7 junior forward came into Tuesday night averaging 21.6 points and 7.3 rebounds per game while knocking down 46% of his 3-pointers. But Nwora gets his buckets off of rhythm jump shots and exploiting one-on-one matchups in his favor, and the Red Raiders provided him with neither.
In the first half, Nwora went 1/9 for the field, scoring five points. While any team can be shut down once an opponent studies you and knows your tendencies Texas Tech was all over the Cardinals, which to me says they made need to add some specific counters to their normal offense.
Every team works on these types of things, but in the case of the Cards, it felt like they had no idea what to do once they couldn’t execute the initial skip pass to get into their offensive set. It was clear that Texas Tech was forcing Louisville basketball very much outside of their comfort zone.
The problem this causes is pretty simple: Louisville isn't getting offense out of the stuff they run, which means they need guys to make plays and create. They don't have that outside of Nwora, and Nwora is shooting like he has Tech's moneyline. https://t.co/piOjh7TbAO
— Rob Dauster (@RobDauster) December 11, 2019
Nwora was being tightly guarded most of the evening, sometimes even getting face guarded by athletic Texas Tech guard Chris Clarke (6-foot-6, 220 lbs.), who is closer to Nwora in size than many programs’ forwards. After their crushing defeat to DePaul, the Red Raiders clearly wanted to prove something on the defensive end and they certainly have laid out the blueprint for how to slow down this season’s Louisville basketball team.
Some stats on Tech's defensive performance...
— Eric Kelly (@EricKellyTV) December 11, 2019
- Jordan Nwora (25%) tied the 4th worst shooting night of his career when taking 10+ shots.
- The 19 turnovers were for the most for the Cards since 2/9/19.
- 17.6% from beyond the arc was the worst for Louisville since 12/29/17.
Following Tuesday’s game, teams will be more willing to experiment with double-teaming and aggressively challenging Nwora to give up the ball. He isn’t the best passer in the world (3 assists and 4 turnovers on Tuesday) but posting Nwora up more would be a way to at least simplify what pass he should make once the pressure comes from the defense.