Louisville Basketball: Is the Offense Good Enough for Cardinals to Contend?

Normally, a 64-55 victory over a Top 15 team would have the Louisville basketball team feeling fairly good about itself. However, the Cardinals and their fans would be forgiven if they left Tuesday’s win over Ohio State with more concerns and questions than answers.

Yes, Louisville is one of the best teams in the entire country, and the defense is simply unfair (No. 1 in Ken Pomeroy’s pace-adjusted defensive efficiency rankings) with length and athleticism all over the court.

Still, the goal at Louisville is not to impress during the regular season as much as it is to win championships in March. After six games, there are legitimate questions about whether the Cardinals’ offense is talented enough to reach the desired championship level that is in place for this squad. 

Tim Sullivan of The Courier-Journal perfectly summarized the proceedings early in the second half:

Luke Hancock and Russ Smith are no longer around to bail the Cardinals out when they need a critical shot. The offense came through with a couple critical shots after Ohio State closed the margin from 19 points to three with about a minute remaining, but the game should have never been that close.

Louisville shot 35.2 percent from the field and 16 of 28 from the free-throw line against Ohio State, but it’s not just the raw statistics that should have fans concerned. Louisville completely dominated the first half and built a 19-point lead, while the Buckeyes’ early body language certainly suggested the game was over.

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There was no reason that the Cardinals should have let them back into it.

D’Angelo Russell deserves some credit for leading the Buckeyes back to within three points when fellow guard Shannon Scott turned in a dud of a performance, but if Louisville could have consistently hit even some of its open shots, this would have been a massacre throughout. 

Ohio State is solid defensively, but this is not exactly the suffocating defense that we have seen in years past with Aaron Craft hounding opposing point guards. Bob Baptist of The Columbus Dispatch pointed out that the Buckeyes were particularly weak on that end early in the game:

Louisville could have gotten an open three-point look whenever it wanted just by swinging the ball a couple of times against the Buckeyes’ zone. However, it still finished a pedestrian 10 of 29 from beyond the three-point line.

While that 34.5 percent clip isn’t exactly horrible from distance, it would look a lot different without Wayne Blackshear’s 4-of-8 performance.

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What’s more, the Buckeyes’ zone defense opens up the middle of the floor for plenty of offensive rebounds. Louisville grabbed 18 offensive boards and had a number of easy opportunities on putbacks but couldn’t convert on some of those chances.

Teams like Kentucky or Duke are not going to allow 18 offensive rebounds to the Cardinals later in the season, so they need to find a more consistent way to put the ball in the basket. 

The scary thing is, Blackshear isn’t going to have nights like this every game. He finished with 22 points and was the best offensive player on the floor for Louisville, earning praise from Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports in the process:

Still, it was the first time all season that he topped 16 points in a game or made more than two three-pointers in one night.

Blackshear is certainly a talented player who will turn in some impressive performances throughout the season, but the Cardinals will be more reliant on Montrezl Harrell over the course of the year. Harrell is a future NBA lottery pick who has the athleticism to play above the rim and dominate on the blocks, but the guards have to get him the ball on a consistent basis.

Three Louisville players took more shots than Harrell during Tuesday’s game, which is part of the reason why Ohio State was able to string together enough stops to pull within three. 

Chris Gehring of CardChronicle.com noted that the Cardinals are well aware of their offensive shortcomings in the early going this season:

The 45-point performance the last time out against Cleveland State was very alarming for Louisville, and it was only shooting 43.7 percent from the field and an abysmal 24 percent from three-point range coming into Tuesday’s game. The fact that the field-goal percentage will go down after the win probably doesn't sit well with Rick Pitino.

The bottom line is, Louisville may just be the best defensive team in the entire country, but the offense still has plenty of work to do. The Cardinals are going to be in every game because of their ability to get critical stops when needed and pressure opposing ball-handlers 90 feet from the basket.

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They demonstrated why Tuesday when they held Scott, who led the nation in assists coming in, to zero assists and five turnovers. Yes, Russell scored some important baskets in the second half, but he was uncomfortable and forced the issue in the first half against the dominant Cardinals’ defense.

However, if offense doesn’t drastically improve, there will be another team cutting down the nets in March in both the ACC and at the national level. There will be games when Louisville's opponent is simply hitting shots, and the Cardinals will have to respond on the other end.

The goal for Louisville is to compete with the Kentuckys and Dukes of the world this season, and a repeat of Tuesday’s offensive effort will not be good enough to do that in late March.

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