Though he’s far from the only hoops fan who has uttered it more than once, The Professor would offer it up through the decades until it became cliché.

“You look good when you make your shots.”

How’s that other cliché go, “There’s an exception to every rule.” Something to that effect.

So, let’s pick a random moment from yet another “battle” when Louisville fell behind early, and never caught up. This time out, never making a run.

How about at the 7:26 stoppage before the final buzzer. At which point, the Cards had drained 50% of their shots.

And were down a mere 25 points at 55-80.

Which was the margin at 00:00: Wake Forest 90, Louisville 65.

It was never a ball game.

 * * * * *

The problems with the Cardinal performance this game mirrored those of the season.

They are structural.

This time out at the defensive end, where the Cards were simply incapable of defending the trey, because . . .

. . . it would appear the defending philosophy in Winston-Salem was to stop the Demon Deacons in the paint. Which Deacs’ coach Steve Forbes and his charges discerned early on.

So they ran sets which made it look like they wanted to go inside, then deftly rotated to floor spacing where at least one of their players was wide open beyond the arc.

Most often in the left corner, when whatever red-clad defender was checking that WF baller would be hedging to double team the post.

Wake Forest was 18/35 from long range. 51%. And that’s after missing 7 of their last ten.

Defending the trey is coaching.

Case in point. Wake Forest.

At halftime, when the Cards were 0/3 from Treyville, we watching on the telly were advised that the Demon Deacons had surrendered but four triples in their last six halves of hoops. 120 minutes.

That would be some Tenacious D. Jack Black be smilin’.

The Cardinals netted a couple threeballs after the break, during which 20 minutes the lead was never cut to less than the 13 point halftime disadvantage.

 * * * * *

Trying to think if there was any other interesting aspect to the Cardinals’ dozenth L of the season.

Not really.

Unless you consider that the first media stoppage of the 1st came at 10:24, when Tre White was at the line. He hit the first. Before he got his second opportunity, they came with the another commercial timeout for Flo to sell us insurance.

Next: Duke.

— c d kaplan