Louisville Basketball: Takeaways from Cardinals upset loss to Texas Tech

Louisville gets beat in the hustle stats

Louisville held Texas Tech to 39.7% shooting from the field, so we aren’t going to tear apart their defensive performance. That being said, an even stronger effort on defense (and in the hustle stats) would have boded well for the Cardinals. Louisville was outrebounded, and Texas Tech also finished with more steals and double the number of blocks as the Cardinals. Overall it simply felt like Texas Tech was the more physical team all night, which showed up in the box score.

Throughout the game, Louisville was also getting screened rather easily. This led to great looks for the Texas Tech shooters.

https://twitter.com/TexasTechMBB/status/1204574684995452928

On top of decent shots for shooters, the Cardinals’ defense was allowing way too much middle penetration. The lack of focus down the stretch in keeping the ball on one side of the floor made the Cardinals vulnerable to a variety of cuts and skip passes.

The lack of attention to detail—possibly spurred on by their offensive woes—and energy late was a big part of what contributed to Red Raiders’ guard Davide Moretti scoring a game-high 18 points (8/8 FTs) despite going 2/10 from the 3-point line.

The Cardinals also struggled with Texas Tech freshman Terence Shannon Jr. who found it quite easy to drive hard and finish at the rim against Louisville. One of the shots Shannon made down the stretch was a quick-trigger pull-up midrange shot with the shot-clock expiring that absolutely demoralized Louisville. Shannon was 4-for-9 from the field for 13 points and perhaps guarding him with a different assignment would’ve been the difference in this game.

Despite being excellent on both sides of the ball, Louisville basketball is clearly led by their defense. And despite having an overall solid night, the Cardinals defense couldn’t pull out stops when they needed them most.