Louisville's lack of interior scoring ends its season against Michigan State
The second season of the Pat Kelsey era comes to a close, with the Cardinals losing 77-69 in the Round of 32 to the Michigan State Spartans. The Cardinals finish the season with 24-11 record.
A cause for separation on Saturday was the lack of interior scoring for the Cardinals, as 37 of their 63 field-goal attempts came from the three-point line. Louisville only took 13 total shots at the rim, in which they converted eight of those attempts. Louisville did find a lot of success for the majority of the game seeking open threes, but unfortunately not enough of them went down. Especially in the early going.
Struggles to generate rim-pressure
As mentioned, Louisville was limited in their attempts at the rim. Michigan State was determined to clog driving lanes and prevent rim-pressure from the Cardinals. The Spartans allowed a bevy of three-point attempts and focused on preventing paint touches. Their perimeter defenders were aggressive and physical on drives, not allowing Louisville to turn the corner for penetration.
Furthermore, Louisville’s lack of downhill drivers and paint finishers was evident. The guard nucleus of Ryan Conwell, Kobe Rodgers, Adrian Wooley, and Isaac McKneely collectively struggled to beat the initial line of defense. When you look at this core of guards, there’s some, but not a lot of individual creation upside with this group.
Conwell is best suited off the ball and has had to slot into an on-ball role with the Cardinals due to the absence of Mikel Brown Jr. He can create space downhill on occassion, but his elite trait is his ability to stretch the floor as a catch-and-shoot option. This resulted in his shot-diet being reliant on threes, as 11 of his 15 total attempts were from distance. He’s also slotted into a role of being a playmaker, which isn’t his strong suit and makes him expend energy in that capacity.
Another senior playing in his last tournament game, McKneely wasn’t able to turn the corner or create his own space against the physical perimeter defenders of Michigan State the way he was against USF. Neither was Rodgers.
The only one who was able to get downhill consistently with success was Wooley. Unfortunately, he had to battle with some cramps, which slowed him down in the second half.
On the day, the guards took 37 field-goal attempts, with 25 of them being three-point attempts.
FT margin/paint production
Additionally, Louisville wasn’t able to get to the free-throw line. For the game, they only took six free-throw attempts, converting four of them. In the second-half alone, they only shot two – not a recipe for success against a top-12 team.
Michigan State dominated this aspect of the game, as they tripled the Cardinals at the free-throw stripe. The disparity in the game was 19 to 6 in favor of the Spartans. The Cardinals also committed 21 fouls compared to 11 fouls for the Spartans.
“The free-throw disparity was a difference in the game,” said Coach Pat Kelsey. “We only shot six free-throws, they shot 20. They are a hard-charging, driving, attacking team, but we try to be, as well.”
The Cardinals also failed to get much of an interior presence from their forwards and bigs. J’Vonne Hadley finished with perhaps his worst career game in a Louisville uniform going 1-for-8 from the field, only converting one of his four two-point attempts. He had issues against the positional size that the Spartans presented, playing two bigs at the same time, while also having the physical and explosive force of Coen Carr on the floor.
Sananda Fru also was 1-of-3 from the field, only posting two points for the game.
The Cardinals now move to the offseason and must replace at least eight players with zero incoming freshman.
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