Pegues 'Pissed Off' at Louisville's Defensive Performance Against Syracuse

The Cardinals gave up their most points this season against the Orange.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - It wasn't too long ago that Louisville had one of the best defenses in all of college basketball.

They were a team that dominated on the defensive glass, hounded teams when they tried to shoot the ball from anywhere on the floor, and forced a fair amount of turnovers in the process. Through the first ten games of the 2021-22 season, the Cardinals were ranked as the No. 12 team in the nation in terms of defensive efficiency, according to KenPom.

When Louisville took the floor of the Carrier Dome Saturday to take on Syracuse, they couldn't have looked any different on that end the court.

From the jump, the Orange were all over Louisville. They started the game by hitting nine of their first ten field goal attempts, connecting on their first four three-point attempts, and seemingly in the blink of an eye, Syracuse led 25-14 in the first eight minutes of the game.

Syracuse eventually cooled off a bit from their blazing hot start, but not by much. They finished the game shooting 55.2 percent from the field, as well as 12-23 on three-point attempts, sending the Cardinals back to Louisville with a 92-69 beatdown.

To say that interim head coach Mike Pegues was displeased with Louisville's defensive performance against the Orange is a an understatement.

"The one thing that bothered me was the lack of enthusiasm, in particular on the defensive end. We couldn't have talked about it more," he said. "I'm a little pissed off with our guys, in the sense that the enthusiasm and attention to detail was not there."

Syracuse's 92 points was the highest Louisville had allowed all season long, but it was far from the start of overall issues containing the opposition. For as much as their offense has contributed to their midseason slide, their once formidable defense has crumbled since the first month of the season, currently ranking at No. 102 according to KenPom.

Louisville (11-12, 5-8 ACC) is now on a five game losing streak, and have lost eight of their last nine games to send them below .500 on the year. The last time the Cardinals had a losing record this late in the season was in 2000-01 during Denny Crum's last year.

But even with their recent defensive woes, there was reason to believe things could get better down the stretch. In their previous two games against Duke and North Carolina, which were their first games since mutually parting ways with head coach Chris Mack, their overall effort and energy was much improved. 

The Orange took whatever on-court good will that Louisville had mustered in the last two games, and threw it completely out the window. They exposed the Cardinals' ball screen defense time after time, even to the point where Pegues had to throw out their traditional coverage to switching one through five, simply because Louisville was so poor at defending the pick and roll.

"We flat out didn't have guys that understood their job. If they understood it, they certainly didn't do it," he said. "I don't know if it was so much effort, I think that our guys intended to play hard, and at times did play hard. But it was more so of a lack of defensive execution, and an inability to make multiple efforts."

While Louisville wasn't exactly great on the offensive side of things, shooting 40.3 percent from the floor and 10-35 on threes, they couldn't string together enough stops to put themselves back in the game.

Pegues not only said that his squad doesn't understand "the significance of getting stops," but also that they are "not talented enough that we can come out and have a defensive showing like we did pretty much the whole night."

He also doesn't want to use the program's tumultuous last couple weeks - and quite frankly, season, too - as a fall back excuse. He isn't afraid to bench anyone on the team if they aren't committed to playing defense, or aren't displaying any sort of effort, for that matter.

"As an interim head coach stepping into what I know has been a tough situation for our guys, there will be no excuses," Pegues said. "You will show up every day. You will have a level of enthusiasm, attention to detail and toughness on every possession. And if not, I have to find five guys that will."

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