Louisville’s struggles against quality opponents, particularly on the road, continued on Saturday afternoon with an 80-75 loss to a Clemson team that entered the weekend having lost four straight.
The Tigers remain the only ACC opponent outside of newbie Stanford that the Cardinals have failed to beat on the road since joining the conference in 2014-15.
The recipe for defeat was a similar one for U of L.
The Cardinals shot the ball poorly — just 10-of-36 (28%) from three. They defended the interior
poorly. They got outscored at the free-throw line by 17. They were beaten to virtually every 50/50 ball and never looked like the more “desperate” of two teams both in critical need of a win heading into March.
Clemson led by 15 points with less than 2 minutes to play before a late flurry spearheaded by Adrian Wooley made the final score look better than it probably should have. Wooley led the Cardinals with 17 points.
Adding to the frustration of the afternoon was the resurgence of Mikel Brown Jr.’s lingering back injury. The freshman point guard did not start the game, but played most of the first half and the start of the second before sitting for the game’s final 8 minutes. Brown was largely ineffective while he was on the court, scoring just 5 points on 2-of-10 shooting from the field and 0-for-6 from three.
With the loss, Louisville fell to 0-8 this season in Quad-1A contests, and just 1-12 in Q1A games under Pat Kelsey.
There have been NCAA Tournament Cardinal teams that have had less momentum heading into the month of March … but it’s been a while.
