In my pregame prep, I refreshed my memory about some truly important mileposts, battles of note against Arkansas in decades past.
The Good: Scooter or Charles one or the other or both following a shot to beat the Razorbacks in Knoxville in the Dream Game Chaser game.
The Bad: The season ending loss to Arkansas in ’79, a game when Denny Crum was so displeased with Grif’s play, he sat him most of the second half.
The Ugly: US Reed from midcourt to end the ’81 campaign after the defending champs had won 15 in a row and 19 of 20 to offset a truly dismal start to the campaign.
What my research didn’t reveal: That freshman Jimmy Dykes was on the Arkansas bench when Reed launched the heartbreaker. I knew he played there, but didn’t know exactly when.
And there he was doing color for the game Wednesday night.
Which finished a bracing 89-80 Arkansas smack in the face to hand the Cards their first L of the campaign.
Dykes is an obvious SEC fan, an acolyte, and his authoritarian tone is off putting to many. Still he is one of the more perceptive and observant commentators doing college hoops.
At some point early in the 2d, when the Cards were down 15 or so, he said to Karl Ravech, “What Louisville is missing is nastiness.”
Mic Drop.
The tale of the tilt in a nutshell.
More disappointing than the loss was the lack of fight.
Lack of fight underneath. U of L was manhandled on the boards, 46-36. More salient, the victors grabbed 18 off the offensive glass, turning those retrievals into 27 second chance points. U of L had 12 ORB, but only scored 9 from them. -18.
Lack of fight on defense. Louisville made a run after intermission, but couldn’t get any consecutive stops of consequence. It seemed like the Cards were getting beat off the dribble way too often.
The Cardinals cut the lead to 5 thrice.
The Razorbacks answered every time on their following possession.
Louisville could never grab the game by the short and curlies.
The first half which ended with an insurmountable 18 point deficit was disturbing.
Walton Area, normally one of the most daunting atmospheres around, was just kind of quiet.
Yet Louisville played timidly, tentatively and as Arkansas’s lead grew, the Cards offensive flow — such as it may have been — disintegrated.
The Cards headed to the locker room -12 at the FT line, -12 points off turnovers, -15 bench points, -6 on the boards, and had 0 fastbreak buckets vs. 8 point for the home team.
Who was the alpha dog?
Uh, nobody.
* * * * *
One needn’t be a hoops savant to have observed from the beginning of the season that U of L’s inside presence isn’t deep nor championship-quality robust.
Aly Khalifa, as much as we love him, is a one trick pony. He was of no help underneath against the Razorbacks assertiveness.
Khani Rooths and Kasean Pryor who ostensibly might have provided some junkyard woof saw but 14 minutes of PT between them.
* * * * *
Next: Indiana Saturday in Indy.
The Hoosiers will also be reeling from a comeuppance. They fell at Minnesota while the Cardinals were losing a heat check in Fayetteville.
— c d kaplan
I’m not sure what you mean by “chaser game”, but the Arkansas game preceded the Dream Game. The Dream Game was the regional final.
Meaning the game that chased the Dream Game. Didn’t really work.
Okay, so there is a story here. When Scooter and/or Charles tipped that ball in I was a student at uk, and watching it amongst many slapdicks. I was also drunk. I started making bets left and right giving up 10 points, and there were plenty of takers. Right? The next morning I wake up sober, and panicked. Wtf did I do? 10 points. Shit. I start making even straight up winner bets to hope to cover the 10 point drunken euphoria stupidest. Also easy to do in Lexington. 50/50 fan split at our house watch party. Most all uk students, uk student Cards fans like me from Louisville 50% of the crowd. Thank gawd (in Rupp’s voice) for overtime. 💰
Here’s a tip. After say a half dozen brewskis don’t log in to you betyourass.com account.
Good advice
Lack of fight? Louisville never fights when Kenny Payne is in the building.
My keyboard is covered as I erupted in laughter and spit coffee everywhere. I needed that after this loss. Thank you.
My pleasure lol
I hope your keyboard cleans up well.
Seedy you told me after the Kansas game I was overreacting about our front court’s lack of athleticism and talent. Yes they can get better, but I will stick with what I said. When the 3’s are not dropping this team’s weak and talent lacking front court is going to be a hard ceiling in the tourney against teams with elite front court talent. We should be able to put together a season worthy of a seed good enough to have matchups to get us to the Sweet 16. Anything beyond that is gravy. If we get hot from the 3 ball line, more is possible. Cold, and less is possible. You know more about basketball than this football first guy, but I didn’t grow up on the 10th row in Freedom Hall and not learn anything. This team’s front court is a glaring weakness.
I’ll take your word that was my reaction. I simply don’t remember. I know, as I wrote in this piece, that it was apparent from jump that front court was the single biggest impediment to this team’s success or not. Whatever, you are absolutely correct. Not sure if Kelsey’s plan doesn’t include major inside presence like, oh Florida or Michigan or Michigan State, to name a few. Or, if he simply struck out in recruiting and portal. Makes the season interesting. Time to make lemonade.
Your reaction was a typical “just an exhibition too early to overreact” reply, which is fair depending on the standard of achievement being discussed. I’ve watched enough basketball to see how player talent matches up. A bunch of good to great little guys and one decent big guy isn’t going to cut it to get to the FF level. I said in my post that the Sweet 16 was probably the ceiling. I wasn’t predicting gloom and doom, however, talk of a Final Four is pie in the sky unless we start getting meaningful production out of Pryor and Rooths. I don’t care how great our guards are, you can’t put too much pressure on guards and swing players if you want to contend for a title. It won’t hold up over 6 games, or even 4 or 5 games. You replied that Sweet 16 would be another huge step forward, and I don’t disagree. But unless we start seeing some front court presence beyond Fru we have a hard ceiling. That ceiling isn’t the FF unless we get extra hot at the right time, or Pryor and Rooths start playing like champs.