Short and Long Term Thoughts Following Another Louisville Quad 1 Loss

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - At this point in time, most fans of the Louisville men's basketball program probably feel like Bill Murray in the movie 'Groundhog Day.'

Last night, the No. 20 Cardinals had a marquee chance to earn a resume-boosting win, traveling down to Durham to take on No. 4 Duke. Unlike this previous matchup vs. the Blue Devils, an 84-73 home loss back on Jan. 6, UofL had star point guard Mikel Brown Jr. at their disposal. Marching into Cameron Indoor Stadium is never easy, but with their team at (nearly) full strength, maybe they had a chance to play spoiler.

Instead, it was Groundhog Day... again.

By the end of the night, in front of a national audience as part of ESPN's 'Big Monday,' Louisville had been dealt a humiliating 83-52 loss by Duke to fall to 14-6 overall and 4-4 in ACC play. It marked the largest margin of defeat in Pat Kelsey's two years as the head coach of the Cards - and yet, it was an all-too-familiar feeling.

"We got our butt kicked. It's about the extent of my statement," Kelsey said. "I don't have much else to say, other than it was a butt kicking. Credit Duke for that. Every metric that you would look at that speaks to a butt kicking. That's what the stat sheet says."

When going up against teams that are regarded as Quad 2, 3 and 4 in the NET metric, Kelsey has done a consistent job against these types of teams. In fact, he is a perfect 11-0 against these teams so far this season, and 34-1 since taking the Louisville job (with the lone loss being at Georgia Tech last season).

But when it comes to facing teams in Quad 1, which are the top teams in the sport, Louisville under Kelsey has fallen far short of what fans around these parts come to expect. After last night, the Cardinals are just 3-6 in Quad 1 games so far this season, and 7-13 since the start of last season - including just 2-5 at the KFC Yum! Center.

Not only is Kelsey not winning against Quad 1 teams, he's getting smoked. The average margin of defeat against teams in the top-25 of the NET since he arrived, teams in which Kelsey has a 2-10 record against, is 11.9 points. This includes four losses of at least 20 points.

To Kelsey's credit, Louisville takes care of business against the teams that they are supposed to beat. But at some point, he's going to have to start showing that his squads can go toe-to-toe with some of the tougher teams on the schedule, or the hopes of making a deep run come NCAA Tournament time will be nothing more than a dream.

I'm not even saying they have to beat every single Quad 1 team on the schedule. They also still have plenty of time this season to begin making progress in this department. But at this time, the trend of continually falling flat against marquee opponents is, at the very least, extremely concerning.

So what can actually be done to reverse this trend? Both in the short term and the long term, there are ways that Kelsey can get Louisville on the right path against the cream of the crop. However, its involve Kelsey making tweaks to how he goes about running a program at the micro and macro levels.

Let's start with the changes Kelsey can make immediately: ever so slight changes to his scheme on both ends of the floor.

Defensively, Kelsey is dead set on playing man-to-man defense at all times. This has faired well against the teams that Louisville should beat, but of course, Quad 1 teams have picked this scheme apart - especially on the interior.

I'm not saying that Kelsey has to turn into Jim Boeheim and run nothing but zone defense. But at some point, you need to mix up the looks just a little bit to throw your opponent off balance. Especially if you keep getting demolished down low and the help-side defense always remains a tick slow. Hell, Kelsey played a 1-3-1 zone for one possession against Virginia Tech, and it worked!

As far as his offensive scheme goes, I don't think he has to make major changes. We've seen analytics-heavy five out systems have success at this level, with Nate Oats and Alabama being the first one that comes to mind,

But at times, Kelsey has talked about the element of randomness that goes into his scheme. That's fine and dandy, but sometimes that devolves to trying to penetrate the lane on the isolation, kick it out if unsuccessful, and repeat.

We've seen that, when Kelsey actually draws up set plays, Louisville has had an extraordinary amount of success. I'm not saying that every possession needs to have a specific play drawn up for it, but it wouldn't hurt to set more set plays in general. Kelsey has shown that he has the offensive mind for it.

But what about the changes that Kelsey needs to make from a long term standpoint? The first one that comes to mind is the roster construction element.

In the preseason, this team was lauded for their backcourt depth and their shooting ability. Especially with how these pieces fit into Kelsey's system. The only concern was their front court depth and overall capabilities, but the general consensus was that their elite backcourt would make up for it.

This isn't a dig at guys like Sananda Fru, Aly Khalifa, Vangelis Zougris, Kasean Pryor, or even J'Vonne Hadley at an individual level. Fru and Zougris have even shown tangible progress in recent weeks. But Louisville's collective front court efforts have not only fallen short of already somewhat low expectations, but the back court isn't even performing at a level that can mask them if they weren't underwhelming down low.

Since he arrived at Louisville, Kelsey loaded up on almost nothing but shooters to fit his modern five-out system. It's starting to reach a point that, once the offseason gets here, he needs to invest more time and resources into recruiting the painted area.

When threes aren't falling or aren't even open, Louisville has to be able to bang bodies and get it done with the big men. His system is all about the most efficient shots in basketball, which are threes and looks right at the rim, but the latter is seemingly at ignored at times - by both bigs and guards. The Cardinals have the highest three point field goal attempt rate in all of D1 (54.3), but have the 112th-ranked shooting percentage from deep (35.2).

Additionally, if Kelsey is going to continue to run at a super fast pace (which by all means, I'm all for), then moving forward, he will likely need to stop bringing in players that will have to sit for a season. Last year it was Khalifa and Kobe Rodgers, this year it's Mouhamed Camara and London Johnson.

If the goal is to give regular run to nine or even 10 guys over the course of a season, you need all the available players you can get. Especially if/when injuries start to hit, which we have seen in both seasons under Kelsey now. Sure, the injury bug has bitten Kelsey somewhat hard since he arrived, but that's not an excuse. Everyone deals with injuries at some point.

By no means, am I sounding the alarm on Kelsey. As previously stated, he has plenty of time to right to ship this season, and he has otherwise served the program well by pulling them out of the depths and getting them back to somewhat national relevance. I've seen some fans try and compare him to Kenny Payne, which is a reach that even the Mind Flayer from Stranger Things couldn't do. Some have even called for him to be fired, to which I say: go touch grass.

But if Kelsey is to get Louisville back to being truly one of the elite programs in the sport, at some point, he's going to have to start winning against marquee teams. And that will likely involved him making some slight adjustments to how he goes about running a program.

Some things that work at Winthrop and Charleston won't work at this level, and the quicker he realizes that, the better.

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