Not much of an expert about excavation.

Have used a shovel as little as possible through the decades.

Yet I can conceptualize what has become a maxim of sorts.

The deeper the hole, the harder it is to dig out of.

It took U of L 4:19 of play before it could put the ball through the net, when sub Ty-Laur Johnson hit a running J.

Which cut visiting North Carolina State’s lead to 2-12.

No tally for your first six possessions. 0 to a dozen Deep hole.

Despite continuing forays, the Cards never fully recovered.

Losing their offensive discipline, the Cards were still down 9 at the half. But opened the 2d with passion and focus. After the eventual victors scored first, U of L went on an 9-0 run to cut the deficit to a deuce.

So it was to be the rest of the afternoon.

The key sequences of the 2d were eerily similar.

At the 11:55 mark, Curtis Williams drained a triple.

Cards then led for the first time all afternoon, 55-54.

The Wolfpack’s Michael O’Connell answered immediately with a wide open trey after a defensive breakdown.

At the 9:54 mark, Curtis Williams netted another three to knot the contest at 58.

Seconds later State’s DJ Horne was the member of the Pack who found himself wide open beyond the arc. He canned it.

Louisville never got closer the rest of the game.

In front of a crowd that braved the cold  and did its best to heat up the Cardinals, there was one last flurry of shovelfuls.

Former Card assistant Kevin Keatt’s guys forged ahead by 14 with  2:18 left.

Hoping for another close like that 9-0 job in Coral Gables, U of L kept comin’.

The disadvantage was down to three with :31 left. State held on.

Louisville 83, North Carolina State 89.

 * * * * *

I eat a lot of apples. A LOT of apples. As in every morning for breakfast with peanut butter. Literally every morning. (Teddie PB out of Boston. On sliced Hunyz, Sugar Bees or Cosmic Crisps.)

Last week at the grocery when I was stocking up with a dozen or so apples, the checkout clerk, asked if I was making a turnover.

No, thought I, but my favorite team knows something about ’em.

Which is the usual circuitous non sequiturial route taken in this space to get to another predictive aspect of this L.

The visitors actually turned it over more than the Cards, who steadied with the ball after intermission.

Wolfpack 15 giveaways, Cardinals 10.

Buuuuuuuuuuuut . . . U of L was only able to convert those State gifts to a dozen points. While the winners added 14 when the Cards gave it away.

Despite that spate of hero shots in the 1st, resulting in misfires, Louisville shot it well. 53% of threeballs, 76% at the line. But State was allowed to hit 54% from the field, to hit half their downtowners. They made 88% of charity tosses.

Big hole.

Turnover weirdness.

Another loss.

–c d kaplan