Careless Ball Handling, Listless Effort Continuing to Beleaguer Louisville
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Not much has gone right over the first month of the Louisville men's basketball program's 2022-23 season. Honestly, you can make an argument that nothing has gone right at all given their overall record at this point.
Seven games into the Kenny Payne era, the Cardinals are still searching for win No. 1. They lost each of their first three games of the year by a single point, but once Louisville started playing high-major teams, the dam broke. Against Arkansas, Texas Tech, Cincinnati and Maryland, UofL has lost by an average margin of 25.5 points, most recently falling 79-54 to the Terrapins on Wednesday.
When you look at the overall statistics, it doesn't paint a pretty picture. They don't shoot the ball well, they allow other teams to shoot above their season average, and they don't rebound the ball well. But one stat stands out above the rest: assist-to-turnover ratio.
Between other teams forcing steals and Louisville outright making careless mistakes themselves, they are one of the more prolific turnover machines in the Division I college basketball. They produce 16.9 of them per game, which comes in at 339th out of the 352 D1 programs that have submitted their statistics into the NCAA database (there are 363 total teams at the D1 level). In fact, they turn the ball over on 24.4 percent of their possessions.
Conversely, their ball movement has been downright non-existent at time, resulting in only 7.4 assists per game, which ranks dead last out of those 352 teams. Put it all together, and that produces an assist-to-turnover ratio of 0.44. Unsurprisingly, that also ranks dead last.
"We have to become a better passing team," Payne said after their loss to Maryland Tuesday night. "There were plays when we had Brandon in the post with a defender on his back and we threw it to the inside hand. There were plays when we're coming down the court and we're panicked, and we dribble it off our foot. Things that, if you're patient, if you're confident you wouldn't think would happen. But for us for some reason, it’s happening. We got to figure that part out.
"I want to be the type of team that is a good passing team because that leads to good offense. I want to be a team that can get the ball in the lane off the drive. Right now, if you look at our starting group, other than El Ellis, everybody else is semi-timid to attack the lane. That's a problem. We got to get those guys better at attacking the lane, being under control and making passes to other players.”
Ahead of the Maryland game, Payne mentioned that Louisville has been working on drills where the team makes "9-10 passes without a dribble" as an attempt to improve their ability to take care of the ball. It certainly didn't come together against the Terps, as they produced 13 turnovers (and 21 Maryland points off them) to only six assists.
But their inability to take care of the basketball is only one part of the equation here. No matter what Louisville does on either end of the court, more often than not, they have operated with an inconsistent, and mostly listless, effort and energy output.
Almost all of Louisville's games have operated with the same script, especially they last four. They fall behind early thanks mainly to minimal fire, manage to battle back some to keep it respectable at halftime, completely fall apart at some point in the second half to the point where it looks like they have given up, then they show some sort of burst of energy in garbage time.
The Maryland game was no different. The Terps led 18-4 over the first seven minutes of the game, yet Louisville was able to keep it to a 37-26 deficit at halftime. UM then nailed their first six shots of the second half, eventually leading by as much as 33 points, and seemingly had eyes for a 40-piece before the subs for each team came in.
"The last thing I said to the guys before walking out on the court (for the second half) was the first five minutes was: ‘fight and be desperate and don’t let them make a run’," Payne said. "Those were the last words I said, and then Maryland made three or four straight threes and we turned the ball over. A lot of credit goes to them. We did not compete. We did not fight. We didn’t meet their intensity."
The main reason for these extreme in-game swings is because there are plenty of moments where it seems that Louisville's players simply do not want to be there. There have been countless instances of players just standing around not moving on offense except for the ball-handler. They same can be said defensively, with players at times showing zero interest at making a play on the ball or collapsing for help-side defense.
“I would say at times we are, but not for a full 40 minutes," guard El Ellis said when asked if he felt that the team was playing hard enough. "That starts, like (guard) Fabio (Basilil) said, we’ve got to be locked in. We have to come out ready to play each game. We’re playing really good teams and we can’t have mental lapses and not come out ready to play."
“We’ve got to be desperate," Basili added. "We can’t let the other team be more desperate than us. That’s really it. Who’s the most desperate team out there on the court.”
That being said, the effort and energy hasn't been a complete disaster. Louisville did show fight and battle back against Maryland down the stretch in the first half, then players like Basili and Devin Ree showed arguably more effort in the game's closing minutes than anyone else did. It's even to the point where Payne is debating playing those two more, despite operating with less execution, simply because they show consistent effort.
"There was a reason I put Fabio (Basilo) and Devin Ree in the game to give them a chance to see. They work hard in practice. They deserve an opportunity. I can’t look into the eyes of players who are tentative and say I am going to leave you out there. I need to see aggressive players. I need see confident basketball players. And these fans deserve to see confident basketball players. We have to fix it.
"I don’t have all the answers today. Some of that is psychological, some of that is personality stuff. I can only tell you that it is disheartening to me to see guys playing the game from Day One when all I ask you to do is be in great shape, play with great energy and be super confident. That is all I am asking. Yes, I want you to play together, but if you are confident, and you play with energy, you have a chance."
During his post-game press conference following the Maryland loss, Payne mentioned that he had even asked his played after the game if they had indeed given up. While he says it was more so of a rhetorical question, the players responded that they hadn't, and would continue to try and grow.
“I really wasn’t hoping for any kind of response, I just wanted the truth. I wanted them to be able to say their truth and for the most part they did. They said that they’re not giving up. They said that there are times when adversity hits and they panic and they don’t play together. They haven’t understood fully how to handle adversity as a group, as a team, and that’s one of the areas that they want to continually try to get better at.”
It's early in the season, but Louisville is going to have to show consistant energy if they are to have a much better showing by the time the second half of the season gets here. If they can shore up their effort, everything else, including their ball handling abilities, will eventually begin to improve.
(Photo of El Ellis: Jamie Rhodes - USA TODAY Sports)
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