No common denominator for Louisville's opponents' comebacks
Chris Mack doesn’t think there is a common denominator that allows opponents to work back into games against Louisville men’s basketball. The Cardinals have shown the ability to build big leads, but holding those advantages are another issue.
Louisville defeated Notre Dame 67-64 in South Bend Jan. 11 after leading by 16 points in the first half. The Cardinals lost their double-digit advantage and fell behind by four points with less than five minutes, but held Notre Dame without a field goal in the last three minutes to rally for an Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) road win.
Four nights prior, Louisville had the same problem. The Cardinals led Miami by 20 points in the first half before their lead was reduced to five points in the second half in Louisville’s 74-58 victory.
The Louisville head coach said shot selection has plagued his team in certain games, but that wasn’t the case against Notre Dame.
“The shots we were creating to start the second half, we can’t get better shots,” Mack said. “That was an issue for us at times when we have held leads, getting errant with our shot selection.”
Louisville went scoreless for the final two minutes of the first half and opening two minutes of the second half against Notre Dame. After starting 2 of 13 from beyond the arc, Notre Dame made 7 of its next 12 3-point attempts to rally.
Fifth-year senior Ryan McMahon said Louisville needs to be dialed in defensively when shots aren’t falling.
“We didn’t come out with the same focus on the defensive end in the second half,” McMahon said. “I thought we were getting great looks on the offensive end, we just weren’t knocking them down.”
Louisville went more than six minutes without a field goal until Lamarr Kimble scored on a drive with 4:17 left to cut Notre Dame’s lead to 59-57. Dwayne Sutton made two 3-pointers to help Louisville retake the lead.
“What was really nice to see as I said on Saturday is our response late when things were going to wrong way for our team,” Mack said.
