Louisville Basketball looks to take advantage of its early opponents, but can the Cardinals take care of mid-major teams and be competitive against power 5 teams?
The Louisville Cardinals are looking to avoid a sloppy start to the 2023-24 season unlike how they started last season. The Cardinals started the season 0-9 last year and had blowout losses to teams like Arkansas by 26 points, Maryland by 25 points, and Texas Tech by a whopping 32 points. The Cardinals also started the season by losing three straight to Bellarmine, Wright State, and Appalachian State. Which all ended by losing exactly by one point.
Kenny Payne and the Cardinals are going to look to avoid that type of disastrous start and hopefully can take advantage of some the easier games on this schedule before going into ACC conference play. Louisville faces a slew of mid major teams which include UMBC, Chattanooga, Coppin State, Arkansas State, and Pepperdine. They also face the Kentucky Wildcats on December 21st, and will face the Texas longhorns to start the Empire Classic tournament in Madison Square Garden on November 19th.
The Cardinals need to take advantage of the mid-major teams on this schedule. Not only would it show growth from the season before, but it would give Louisville some confidence heading into some of these tougher games. A team that is confident was something that the Cardinals struggled with last season. It took ten games last season for them to get a win.
That is something that the 2023-24 Cardinals should avoid at all costs, and should look to take care of business against these so called lesser opponents this coming season. This also goes for the power 5 teams on the schedule (Texas & UK). If the Cardinals can at least be competitive in these games, it will give hope to an already starved Louisville fanbase.
Here are the top 3 most important non-conference games that the Louisville Cardinals will play in the upcoming 2023-24 basketball season.
3. UMBC Retrievers, November 6th, 2023
Louisville will face UMBC to start their 2023-24 campaign, and the first game of the season will always be one of the most important games of the non-conference schedule. UMBC is most widely known for taking down the 1 seeded Virginia Cavaliers in the 2018 NCAA tournament, in what was at the time, the biggest upset in NCAA tournament history. It was the very first time that a 16 seed beat a 1 seed in the tournament.
However, they have been just a middle of the road team in their conference since that appearance. They are apart of the America East conference and seem to fall in the middle or in the top 1/3 of the conference. It is usually dominated by Vermont and that team is the one that makes the tournament out of all the teams in this conference usually.
Louisville should NOT take this matchup for granted for many reasons. They lost 3 straight games against mid major teams to start the season last year (Bellarmine, Wright State, and Appalachian State). Bellarmine spoiled Kenny Payne’s coming home party last season as the Cardinals lost 67-66. This is something that Payne and his team needs to avoid this coming season. The Cardinals need to grab as many wins as they can before they start conference play next season as the ACC is a tough power 5 conference and will play teams like Kentucky and Texas as early as mid November.
UMBC did not play much high competition last year and the best teams they played they lost to. They lost to Princeton 64-94, Georgetown 70-79, and Maryland 64-80. Louisville played Maryland and lost by 25 and Princeton made it to the sweet 16 last season. When it comes to good teams, UMBC seems to not be close to competing but neither does Louisville. At least according to last season.
Louisville needs to start off the season right and defeating UMBC and starting 1-0 would be a perfect start for Kenny Payne and the Cardinals in the 2023-24 season.
2. Texas Longhorns, November 19th, 2023
Louisville will face the Texas Longhorns as a part of the Empire Classic at Madison Square Garden on November 19th. If the Cardinals want to be a better team than last season then this is their chance to rewrite their dismal performance in the Maui tournament last year, by playing better in the Empire Classic tournament.
The Longhorns hired their interim assistant Rodney Terry as their full time coach this offseason, after the Longhorns made a good elite 8 run last season. Terry looks to have the Longhorns near the top of the BIG 12 in 2023-24, and beating low level teams like Louisville is what they would want to avoid. We will know more about this Louisville team when it comes to this game but this matchup against the Longhorns should be the Cardinals first real power 5 test. Texas shouldn’t have much of an issue beating the Cardinals but how they beat them will be the interesting part. If Louisville somehow finds a way to beat the Longhorns then that will be a big story line for Louisville early in the season.
Texas did not have many recruits in the 2023 class but they did do well in the transfer portal bringing in 5 transfers and ranking 8th in the transfer portal. They will also be returning players who were key for the elite 8 run they had last year like guards Tyrese Hunter and Marcus Carr who be sure he have a big role in 2023-24.
The Longhorns will surely be a solid team coming into the 2023-24 season and will have some talent like the Cardinals next season. The game will also be played at a neutral environment and will be a good road-ish test this coming season. It will be a good challenge for the cardinals and if they can at least be competitive in this game it will be a good sign for Louisville for the rest of the season.
It will be interesting to see how the Cardinals fare against this Texas team and the outcome of this game will really show just how good, bad, mediocre, or terrible the Cardinals are this season.
1. Kentucky Wildcats, December 21st 2023
I’m not sure I could talk about Louisville’s non-conference schedule without talking about the Kentucky Wildcats. Louisville beat the Wildcats in 2020 but haven’t beat them in a non covid game since 2016. Kentucky will have one of the best teams in college basketball next season and John Calipari’s recruiting class may be his best in Kentucky history. Kentucky has not necessarily struggled in the last few seasons, but have not been up to true UK standards in recent years. Kentucky tore apart Louisville last season ending with a 86-63 UK win.
Kentucky has the number 1 ranked recruiting class this year unanimously, as they bring in the number one point guard, center, and small forward from the class: Dj Wagner, Aaron Bradshaw, and Justin Edwards. While Kentucky also brings in 4-star transfer Tre Mitchell from West Virginia, and retaining players like Jacob Toppin, Sahvir Wheeler, and Antonio Reeves. Louisville has the 6th ranked recruiting class for next season, and while it is a very good and talented class, Kentucky will be very good next year.
Even though Louisville should improve greatly this season with the transfers and recruits they gain, Kentucky will have great players all around and will more than likely prove they are the better team when the two rivals meet up. However, Louisville should put up a fight against the Cats in 2023. Dennis Evans and Skyy Clark against DJ Wagner and Aaron Bradshaw will be the matchup to watch as they are both the highly touted players on both teams and they will go head-to-head at their respected positions.
The game will also be the first game between Louisville and Kentucky at the KFC Yum Center with a crowd since 2019. Kenny Payne will have the crowd behind him and coaching his first game against the Wildcats on Louisville turf will surely be a special day for him and Cardinal fans alike.
If Louisville can keep the game close or even pull off an upset against the Cats, fans would be ecstatic about the rest of the season and more optimistic about Kenny Payne’s future here. Payne needs to get a grip on these early non-conference teams to establish a different culture from last season.
If Payne can win these three games the Cardinals will be in good shape for ACC play in January. Even if the Cardinals can keep it close, it will show a lot of improvement and create more optimism surrounding the program going into the 2023-24 college basketball season.