Louisville Not Losing Hope Despite Losing Skid

Even in the face of their first losing season in over two decades, the Cardinals are still maintaining hope that they can go on a run down the stretch.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - It's hard to have much optimism regarding the Louisville men's basketball program right now.

Following their most recent loss at Notre Dame last Wednesday, the Cardinals are on a six-game losing streak - their first since the 1990-91 season. Go back even farther, and they have dropped nine of their last ten games. It's a stretch that also saw Louisville and their head coach, Chris Mack, mutually part ways.

After a 10-4 start to the year, the Cardinals are now 11-13 for the 2021-22 season, and are 5-9 in Atlantic Coast Conference play after starting 4-0. Any semblance of hope for a late season turnaround is essentially dead in the water, and it would be hard to fault anyone on this team if they just mailed it in.

Even though it seems that the program has embodied the phrase "abandon all hope ye who enter here," don't tell that to Mike Pegues.

While Louisville is in jeopardy of suffering their first losing season in over two decades (2000-01 - Denny Crum's last year), the interim head coach of the Cardinals is subscribing to the notion that his guys have "far from given up on this season."

"As a staff, that's ridiculous to think that anybody in our entire locker room, in this building, has given up on anything," he said. "We feel like the best is yet ahead. I know that that's hard to believe for a lot of people, our fan base, media. I can't control what anybody else thinks. I'm just worried about these guys, our staff, and moving forward."

He's at least right about the last part. Louisville currently sports a ranking of 127th in KenPom and 125th in the NET. Louisville's chances at grabbing an at-large bid for the NCAA Tournament are closer to none than slim, leaving their only real opportunity to make the Big Dance is by winning the ACC Tournament - which already seems unlikely given they've won one game over the last six weeks.

As Han Solo once said: "never tell me the odds"

Pegues thinks that all Louisville needs is just one win. He believes that it will not only "revitalize this group," but will serve a springboard down the stretch and into the ACC Tournament.

"All hope isn't lost, even in the midst of this with this losing streak," he said. "But a win can really open up the floodgates, and get us really thinking about March, and going into Brooklyn and doing something special. But it starts with getting one win.

Of course, that's easier said than done, and their next matchup isn't exactly coming against a pushover. Miami, who Louisville will host at the KFC! Yum Center on Wednesday, is 18-7 overall and tied for third in the ACC standings with a league record of 10-4. They're led by Kameron McGusty, an All-ACC candidate who averages 17.8 points a night.

Fortunately, Louisville has had a little bit of time to mentally hit the reset button. When they take the floor of the Yum! Center against the Canes on Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m., it will have been seven days since their previous game at Notre Dame.

With all the internal strife that has unfolded over the course of the season, it allowed members of the program to just get away and take their mind off things.

"I feel like that week that we had was really good for us," guard El Ellis said. "We had a lot of time to think, a lot of time to be in the gym on our own, be away from everybody and playing games. It was good to have that time. I'm in a good head space right now."

It also gave Pegues and his staff some extra time to retool some things ahead of their showdown with the Canes. He says they've "altered some things offensively" and will have a "different approach there," and also had conversations about - yet again - shaking up the starting lineup and rotation.

"There's definitely some guys moving up," Pegues said. "Some guys moving up and making that decision a lot more interesting and harder for us. A lot of that will be predicated on today's practice: who can be coachable, who can come out and be productive and play hard, know their job and do their job at a high level."

Obviously, Louisville has a tremendous uphill battle in terms of potentially cracking the NCAA Tournament's field of 68. But at the very least, at least from the outside looking in, it seems the program hasn't thrown in the towel on the season just yet.

(Photo of Mike Pegues, Louisville Players: Matt Stone - Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK)

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