Kenny Payne: Louisville Players 'Intimidated' by Raucous Duke Environment
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Its been hard to spin many positives from this season for the Louisville men's basketball program. But one thing that's hard to deny is that, even with the prevailing struggles to crack the win column, they have shown some improvement in the last couple weeks.
They gave real very scares to a pair of ranked opponents in Miami and Virginia before dropping close decisions, then were able to get back in the win column against Clemson on the night that the Cardinals were honoring their 2013 championship team.
You can also draw some positives from Louisville's 79-62 loss at Duke this past Monday. But in the same breath, it also showed that there is still a ways to go before the Cardinals are back to being nationally relevant in the college basketball landscape.
One game removed from having a raucous environment on their side, head coach Kenny Payne believes that an equally as vocal road crowd played a role in Louisville's inability to face early adversity and get back over the hump.
"At times, it looks like the environment intimidated us. Not acceptable," Payne said after their loss to the Blue Devils. "We tried to explain to them what kind of environment this is. We have a coach on the staff, Nolan (Smith), who played here, coached here, went through everything that this program is and what it means to be here, and how they were gonna come out and play against us. Something didn't click.
"We as coaches, me personally, I'll take the blame for that. I couldn't get them to play the way they needed to play with the fight that we needed to get a win."
Early in the game, Louisville looked like they were primed to spring an upset. In the first seven minutes, the Cardinals went up 18-9, and Duke seemed to have no answer defensively for their early offensive efficiency.
Then Duke fired off a momentum-shifting 20-4 run, giving them control of the contest up until the final whistle blew. Louisville kept it interesting in the second half, getting the deficit back down to 10 points on six different occasions, but just could not get over that roadblock.
The primary reason, despite improving energy and effort by Louisville, was a decisive win by Duke on the boards. While the overall rebounding edge was only 33-28, the Blue Devils took advantage of poor box outs by the Cardinals, securing 12 offensive rebounds for 16 second chance points.
"They have great length. It bothered us," Payne said. "They shot the ball well, and they get the ball in the paint. One thing they did, they dominated us on the boards. ... Disappointed in the way we came out and played. I thought we started out pretty good. Then we put them on their heels, and then when they hit us back, we wilted. We wilted and never got it back."
The loss certainly can't be pinned on guard El Ellis. The Durham N.C. native notched 11 points in the first five minutes of the game, and finished with 21 overall to mark his fourth-straight 20-point game - and fifth in six tries. He also dished out seven assists, which was more than everyone else on Louisville combined for that game.
Where Payne takes issue is not so much with Ellis, but with other people around him stepping up their game to give him help.
"I'm proud of (Eliis)," he said. "He's gotten better. He works hard. He wants to win. He plays to win. He's doing what I'm asking him to do. I just need some other guys to step up with him and fight with him."
Payne used J.J. Traynor as an example of needing players to step up. Even though Traynor finished with 16 points - the second-most by a Cardinal that game - the 6-foot-8 forward only secured three rebounds. Payne also criticized his defensive effort, saying that he needed a "winning" effort from Traynor, and everyone else on the team not named El Ellis.
"I need guys that's gonna get rebounds, that's gonna get assists, that's gonna play with energy, that's going to fight," Payne said. "The fact that (Traynor) shot the ball well, and he scored well, I expect that. I also expect him to finish that off with getting me rebounds and fighting on defense. He had a good game, he had a pretty good game. I need a winning game."
Louisville's players only have three more opportunities in the regular season to put together "winning" efforts before the end of the regular season. Their next time out will be on the road against Georgia Tech on Saturday, Feb. 25 at 2:00 p.m. EST.
(Photo of Jae'Lyn Withers: Rob Kinnan - USA TODAY Sports)
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