Louisville's offense stalls in loss at Clemson

With 8:49 left, Louisville’s Khani Rooths threw a costly, or even careless, pass that led to a turnover and a wide-open made three for Clemson.

This was a part of a run that allowed the Tigers to stretch their lead to 15. From there, they never looked back.

These types of errors led the Cardinals to an 80-75 loss to Clemson, bringing their record to 20-9 (9-7). But, it wasn’t just turnovers. Louisville displayed an extremely inefficient shooting approach.

VIDEO: Louisville’s Pat Kelsey speaks following Clemson loss

Overall shooting display

The Cardinals only had 55 points with 4:17 left to play, but ended up scoring 17 more, as Adrian Wooley got hot late. He ended up scoring 11 points in the last 59 seconds of play.

In this stretch, the Cardinals finished 9-for-12 from the field, including 4-for-6 from three.

But, when looking at the overall body of work outside of that small sample size, Louisville shot just 20-for-52 from the field and 6-for-30 from the field.

Credit goes to Clemson, as they made Louisville work offensively. They walled up on drives, stayed disciplined off the ball, kept track of shooters, and held multiple of Louisville’s offensive shotmakers to poor performances, which I will touch on later. They also limited Louisville’s ability to play at tempo to generate easy baskets, as the Cardinals finished with just two fastbreak points.

“His teams are always so well schooled defensively, and this team is no different,” Cardinals head coach Pat Kelsey said afterwards.

Struggles from three

Clemson was well-prepared for Louisville’s three-point shooting, holding them to 27.8 percent and 10-for-36 from deep.

They contested with high hands on multiple attempts, closed out hard on off-ball rotations, and forced the Cardinals to settle for multiple difficult attempts.

They also held two of the Cardinals’ most potent shooters to subpar shooting performances. Mikel Brown Jr. finished 2-for-10 from the field with five points, including 0-for-6 from three-point range. Isaac McKneely was also 2-for-7 from deep and finished with only six points.

Turnover issues continue and low assist generation

Louisville’s continued struggles with turnovers carried over into this game, as they totaled 11. They also had only 12 assists, which put them just slightly over a 1-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Clemson generated 16 points off these turnovers, as well.

Louisville struggled with its ball pressure, as Clemson sped them up and forced them into poor passes. Also, a handful of these turnovers were careless and unforced. The Cardinals went through phases of sloppy decision-making, which the Tigers exploited.

Additionally, on the assist side, Pat Kelsey’s team struggled to generate assists, which has been a strength all year. Coming into the game, the Cardinals ranked 19th in assists per game, averaging 17.5 on the season, according to TeamRankings.

This part of Clemson’s defense has been a strength throughout the year, as they only allow 10.3 assists per game, which ranked 5th in the nation coming into today’s game.

When Louisville has to play more out of isolation, this has led to issues throughout the season, and continued today. They don’t have many gifted isolation creators, which can lead to stretches of the offense stalling.

What’s ahead

The Cardinals will go back to the drawing board and return home to face off with Syracuse on Tuesday, March 3rd.

“It’s when stuff gets tough, and it’s really tough right now. We’re searching, and we are going to figure it out. The biggest thing is walking out of that locker room and staying a cohesive, connected unit,” said Kelsey in regards to handling adversity. Postseason play is rapidly approaching, so let’s see if the Cardinals can fix their issues before tournament time.

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