Interior defensive woes and struggles from deep crush Louisville against Miami
With 58 seconds remaining, Louisville found itself within one possession before senior guard Isaac McKneely turned the ball over on an inbounds under the Miami basket. The Cardinals immediately fouled, and the Hurricanes made both free throws, putting them up 73-68.
This was a late, significant shift in momentum that the Cardinals unfortunately couldn’t overcome, as the Hurricanes outlasted them 78-73.
Lack of perimeter shotmaking
One of the main offensive issues was a lack of perimeter shotmaking, which Louisville has been associated with all season. Coming into the game, the Cardinals ranked 3rd in three-point makes and three-point attempts per game, according to TeamRankings.
Today, the Cardinals shot 6-for-24 from deep, knocking down the three at an underwhelming 25 percent clip. Miami was well-prepared as a three-point defense, especially considering how well Louisville shot it in their recent matchup on March 7th. During that contest, the Cardinals doubled their makes from deep on the same number of attempts, finishing 12-for-24 in the process.
In this game, it was a different story, as Miami was collectively engaged for the majority of Louisville’s looks from deep. They closed out to shooters with urgency and were well-scouted defending the line, but Louisville also missed some open looks, too.
Additionally, Louisville’s primary shotmakers struggled from deep, those being Ryan Conwell and Isaac McKneely.
McKneely finished the game 2-for-8 from the field, including 1-of-6 from the three-point line. He also missed a timely free-throw towards the end of the game with 22 seconds remaining down 71-74, which would’ve cut Louisville’s deficit to two.
Conwell shot it well from two-point range, but that unfortunately did not carry over to three-point range. He finished the game 8-for-20 from the field, but only converted on one of his 10 attempts from deep.
With Mikel Brown Jr. out, he is tasked with a lot more individual creation duties, which leads to more off-the-dribble three-point attempts. In the year coming into the game, Conwell has only made 30.6 percent of his three-point dribble jumpers, opposed to a 37.1 percent clip on catch-and-shoot attempts, according to Synergy.
Interior defensive woes
Another decisive issue in the game was Louisville’s interior defense, specifically points surrendered in the paint and the free-throw disparity.
For the game, Miami won both categories. In terms of points in the paint, the Hurricanes edged the Cardinals out 44-38. For free-throw disparity, Miami went 19-of-29 from the stripe, as the Cardinals finished 13-of-17, taking 12 less free-throws than the Hurricanes.
“They rammed the ball at the rim constantly. To their credit, they do it really well, they put the officials in a really tough position,” said Pat Kelsey. “It’s one of the things that make them really good because they are attacking you and driving you even when nothing is there.”
“There was a stretch where they were beating us in the box close to the rim in a lot of different ways, whether it was on #5 (Malik Reneau) post-ups – he’s hard to trap because he bulldozes through them,” said Coach Kelsey. “I thought #10 (Tru Washington) had a stretch where they put him in iso’s and he just dribbled around, attacked us, and got to the front of the rim.”
For the game, Reneau finished with 24 points on 8-for-17 shooting, including 7-of-9 from the free-throw line. Washington added 15 points, as he went 5-of-12 from the field and 5-of-6 from the stripe.
The Cardinals will now await their NCAA Tournament draw, which they will learn on Selection Sunday this weekend. The show is on Sunday, March 15th at 6 pm ET.
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