Ringside Seat to Hell: UNLV 56 – U of L 55
Posted by frankpos on January 1, 2009
I just had a ringside seat to Hell.
Seated on press row, across from our bench, I had a clear view of this mess–and an even clearer view of the fresh Hell that could well await us Sunday if we play like this again.
BTW, as a special treat, Hell in the Hall’s photographer, Matt (KyLures) took some great pics of this disaster for us all to savor–if we have the stomach.
Rick Pitino was often seen in this pose during the UNLV fiasco.
Where to begin. It’s always best to begin at the end.
Forget the no foul / foul on the last play by T Will. I was on press row, 15′ away with a clear view of the play. Yes, he was sandwiched between two defenders who got him on the body and the arm… some.
And, the jump ball fiasco at the end? It was not a reviewable call, but when I asked some of the guys at the scorer’s table that I know, they all had seen the replay several times and the ball was clearly off a UNLV player and should have been our ball.
However, the key point is: neither play really should have mattered. We were playing a solid but not spectacular top 30-40 team, without arguably its best player–and at Freedom Hall. If we are truly a top team, we should have beaten them by the Vegas line of 11 pts, or more.
Any progress we showed in the last game against UAB on ball movement only glimmered briefly in this game. When normal passing lanes were cut off by UNLV players, there was no counter by the Cards. Ball movement ceased, and plays broke down into one-on-one moves by T Will, Earl, or god help us, Bad Edgar.
Four turnovers in just 13 minutes? Bad Edgar can do!
Samuels showed difficulty again with quickly kicking it back out, when double-teamed. So there was little in-and -out ball movement either.
We had 7 assists…for the whole game. And 5 of those were by T Will !
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Of course, when you shoot 29% for the game on field goal attempts, you don’t get many assists. It took us over 11 minutes to get our first field goal in the game–on a goal-tending call. Yes, it was pathetic.
What was even worse and inexcusable: The intensity of our D was just not there in the first half, either. We let UNLV shoot 50% on 2′s and 62% on 5 of 8 3′s. When we finally switched on the microwave in the 2nd half, we got the lead. If the intensity was there in the first half, our D probably would’ve won this game for us, in spite of our abysmal 30% shooting.
McGee for 3.
Preston Knowles and Andre McGee were the only Cards that played solid games–and Andre still had 2 TO’s , including getting stripped, with 42 seconds left and U of L up by 1.
Preston was a force on both offense and defense this game, going 3 for 3 on 3's.
Preston stands out in my mind on one defensive series at the end. With 1:47 in a game tied at 53 all, Preston forced his primary man to pick up his dribble out high. Then he jumped on the man receiving the pass, and flustered him into picking up his dribble , and into then double-dribbling.
That was the highlight of the last 2:00 of the game for us.
This game was no “wakeup call”. We’ve already had two of those.
Can this mess be fixed? Yes, good ball movement can cure a lot of ills shooting -wise. There was at least some evidence of the possibilities in the UAB game.
I truly believe Samuels will slowly figure it out, and get better. But he’s not the franchise, one-and -done player that had been ballyhooed.
Samardo Samuels will figure it out--I hope.
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And our D can be formidable. If we apply it with white-hot intensity like we can, all game long, then we can win most games virtually with our D alone, or keep it close.
Last year, we were slogging along with these same problems , after David Padgett went down. If the guys ever click on ball movement, we may get the spark we got last year with Padgett’s return, and go on a late season run.
So, yeah, we can still have a great season. But a season of great promise now rests on a lot of “ifs”.
In the meantime, the schedule gets tougher, and the heat only get hotter…
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Here’s the link to the full set of Matt’s pics on the game:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kylures/sets/72157611943408097/
The Ladybirds are always there to make us feel better.
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Happy New Years….This just in from the Las Vegas Sun (3 articles):
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jan/01/unlv-basketball-game/
….Louisville sophomore guard Preston Knowles watched it all develop.
“They just capitalized on switches,” he said. “With a big man defending a point guard, nine times out of 10 the point guard will score. He did a good job driving to the hole.
“I thought he was going to miss it, but he banked it in. Samardo came close. I thought he’d block it or Bellfield would miss it.”
…..“The way they switch, they don’t allow you to run your offense,” Knowles said. “That creates problems. Players are prone to go one-on-one. It’s challenging. It’s hard for people to score when they take you out of your offense.”…
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jan/01/unlv-notebook/
….Louisville had only 16 baskets, a low for a UNLV opponent over its past 32 games…
The Cardinals had only 15 field goals in a defeat to Western Kentucky in Nashville on Nov. 30….
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jan/01/unlv-extra/
This poster hangs in the Louisville locker room.
In the far corner of the posh Louisville men’s basketball locker room in Freedom Hall hangs a giant poster.
On that poster is a wide-shot from the NCAA Midwest Regional final between Kansas and Davidson from March, played at Detroit’s Ford Field. That will be the site of this year’s Final Four.
Covering the photo is the 2009 Final Four emblem and a transparent Louisville Cardinals logo with the words “what are we playing for today?” on the bird…..
“We had such a flat first half,” junior guard Jerry Smith said. “We’ve never had a half like that since I’ve been here. The intensity wasn’t there like we needed to have in order to come out against a great team like UNLV. Just got to give them credit. They played real well.
“This is gonna bother us the whole season, but you can’t dwell on it.”
None of the stunned and slow-moving figures in the Cardinals locker room could pinpoint a reason for coming out looking so sluggish, but several agreed that not hitting shots early on certainly kept the No. 18 team in the land from snapping out of it sooner…..
….Freshman Samardo Samuels, their leading scorer this season, was just two-of-six, while Terrence Williams went two-of-15 and Clark was four-of-11. That’s 25 percent shooting from the Cards’ three leading scorers….
“Their defense doesn’t really allow you to run your offense at all,” McGee said. “It’s sort of unorthodox. Guys are sort of front-facing you, they really don’t have any vision of the ball, they just try to all-out deny. They really try to take you out of your rhythm.”
Still, the Cards tried to spin some kind of a positive out of the fact that they did gain enough ground in the second half to the point where they held leads three times in the final five minutes (their only three leads of the game) and had a shot to win it at the buzzer.
However, ifs and buts won’t get them far in terms of getting a season with lofty expectations back on track.
Next up is steadily improving in-state rival Kentucky at Freedom Hall on Sunday, followed by a vicious Big East schedule.
Six of their first nine league games come against seemingly sure-fire NCAA Tournament opponents in Villanova, Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, West Virginia and Connecticut.
“We’ve still got a long way to go and a lot better to get,” McGee added. “So that’s the good thing about it.”
But can they go far enough to live up to the poster?
