Is it Time to Start Worrying About Louisville's Postseason Chances?

Shooting and scoring woes, a perceived lack of system buy-in, and COVID is back. Could it be time to start worrying that Louisville might miss the tournament again?

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Heading into the 2021-22 season, there was real reason to believe that the Louisville men's basketball program would be in line to have a bounce back year. Coming off of a 2020-21 campaign where the Cardinals went 13-7 to miss the NCAA Tournament by the slimmest of margins, head coach Chris Mack got to work not only overhauling the roster, but his coaching staff as well.

Last season, Louisville was one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the nation. Mack remedied this by bringing in multiple transfers and recruits who can shoot the long ball.

The Cardinals also had one of the most stagnant and sluggish offenses in college basketball. Mack took a gamble and hired New Zealand National assistant coach Ross McMains - who was known in international circles as an offensive tactician. Mack also elevated Kahil Fennell to an assistant's role as well after firing Dino Gaudio and Luke Murray.

Louisville also had real depth issues in the backcourt, as well as the backup five spot. Mack addressed this by bringing in eight newcomers that not only addressed this problem, but suddenly gave the Cardinals a roster who could theoretically go 10-deep on any given night because of the newfound depth.

Sure, this team was not without fault, as there were concerns about who would become the primary playmaker. But the regard during the preseason was that, at a minimum, this would be a team that got Louisville back to the NCAA Tournament.

But now, it seems like the Big Dance might not be a slam dunk.

After starting at 5-1, Louisville has now lost three of their last five games to sport a record of just 7-4. It's the first time since the 2006-07 season that the Cardinals have accrued four losses before Christmas Day.

Louisville has a less than impressive NCAA Tournament resume up to this point. They lost to Furman for their November home loss in 49 years. They saw their lengthy win streaks against DePaul and Western Kentucky snapped. Even their win against Maryland is considered just a Quad 3 victory now.

The Cardinals are 3-3 against Quad 1 and 2 opponents, with their best win coming against Mississippi State in the Bahamas, but even that is teetering the Quad 1/2 line. Put it all together, and they have a NET ranking of just 75th.

How did we get here?

At this point, it's well documented how much Louisville is struggling to shoot the ball. In fact, their field goal percentage (41.8) is worse this season than what it was last year (43.1). Guys like Matt Cross, Noah Locke and Jarrod West - who were brought in almost exclusively for their three-point shooting - are a combined 31.4 percent from beyond the arc.

There is an important caveat here. While Mack has been critical of Louisville's shot selection, for the most part, they are actually taking good open looks - and simply not connecting. It's almost inexplicable how wide open looks aren't going down.

I mean, just look at this chart.

Making matter worse, not only is Louisville struggling to shoot the ball, now they're having trouble scoring *period*. In their last two games against mid/high major opponents - DePaul and WKU - Louisville has made just ten trips to the free throw line.

This has resulted in some extremely long scoring droughts as of late for the Cardinals. In their most recent game against WKU, they had two stretches of roughly four minutes where they didn't score. They lost. Against DePaul, they had a period of 7:17 where they didn't score. They lost. They had two second half stretches of four and a half minutes at NC State. They needed not one, but two clutch three-pointers to pull out a win.

This has resulted in Louisville putting up just 70.8 points per game, which comes in at 207th in D1. While the offensive tempo has improved dramatically, the efficiency - according to KenPom - is actually worse. It currently ranks 112th in the nation, which is 20 spots lower than what Louisville finished with last season.

One issue could be that no one has stepped up to be the primary playmaker yet, and that a few guys has seemingly regressed. Malik Williams and Noah Locke are the only players who are averaging double figures, with both barely over the 10-point threshold.

Samuell Williamson averaged a double-double in the final six games of last season, and Jae'Lyn Withers was even generating NBA talk over the offseason. Both are averaging just 5.5 points per game up to this point.

It also seems that there could be a disconnect between the coaches and the players. Co-captain Malik Williams has admitted on a couple occasions that some players are having trouble buying into the new offensive system. The effort has been a problem at times, with Mack even saying after the loss to Western Kentucky that his guys weren't ready.

Oh, and COVID is back.

On Monday, Louisville announced that they would be pausing all team-related activities due to positive cases within the program for their third pause over the last two seasons. Why is this a concern? Well, other than missing games which could bolster your resume - like Kentucky - the first games back from both pauses resulted in, quite frankly, good ole fashioned beatdowns at Wisconsin and North Carolina.

Not to mention the fact the Louisville doesn't really have a ton of remaining opportunities for quality wins if they can't get their game against Kentucky rescheduled. The ACC is having an extremely down year, and it could conceivably be just a five bid league for the 2022 tournament, or even less. Conference play might not help an already less-than-inspiring resume.

Of course, there's still two whole months left in the season, and Louisville has plenty of opportunities to right the ship. Shots could start falling, COVID might not be a lingering issue, rotations could get sharpened, and the offense could finally feed off Louisville's elite defense.

It's not quite time to hit the panic button yet. But it's time to start acknowledging that, unless things get turned around, it's a very real possibility that Louisville could miss the NCAA Tournament for a second straight year.

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