Seedy K’s GameCap: Pittsburgh

If you have come here for some new perspective about University of Louisville Men’s Basketball, some insight you haven’t already consumed from another long time hoops scribe, or an analytical perspective from a whipper snapper computer wiz, perhaps an opinion that might differ from the the average chat room dude with a moniker like Herb&Milt86 with no real insight or insider info, think again.

I honestly haven’t a clue.

I’m as flabbergasted as anybody who might actually be tuning in here the day after another headscratching clunker from the Cardinals.

This time a no show in Pittsburgh.

53 Cardinals, 65 Panthers.

What I do know is this whole situation, not just the on court ineptitude, and whatever might be going on in the locker room, the whole schmear is an absolute and total discombobuliteration.

You know that Johnny Cash song about working in a car factory, and stealing a part at a time from different models and different years and building a new conglomeration of a vehicle? And how of course it doesn’t work?

That’s how this mess appears.

* * * * *

I’d really like to get some sense of what’s going on in the players’ minds?

And, mea culpa, that’s something I could have tried to find out, but didn’t.

So, my apologies.

I should have attended Chris Mack’s pregame press conference on Friday.

I’d like to believe, as a former prosecutor, I’d have been at least slightly more assertive in my questioning than those who were there.

The first query was something to the effect of, what was the message to the team after the loss to NC State and the next day at practice, and what was the team’s response, how are they handling this?

Mack sort of answered the first part, watch film, etc etc.

He did not address the team’s state of mind.

No media person in attendance followed up and held his feet to the fire.

My bad.

Not that it would make any difference if we did know.

* * * * *

After a couple of back and forth runs early on, Pitt took a lead at 23-22, and never looked back.

U of L didn’t score in the last 4:16 of the 1st. The winners were up four at intermission. The Cardinals never closed an inch of that gap in the 2d.

From the 10:30 mark in the 2d until the buzzer, Louisville was never within single digits.

I texted Doc, asking if we could request a running clock?

* * * * *

When U of L was down 24-25 at 3:53 in the opening 20, I jotted this in my notes: “ The Question > WILL CARDS WIN? No feel for it.”

In retrospect, I was obviously whistling past the graveyard. OK, I was lying to myself.

I know now that I knew then.

Given what I/ We were watching, the loss was inevitable.

* * * * *

It’s time for some BIG decisions.

Inside the program. And outside, for the interim powers that be who control the program’s future.

Is Mack up to rethinking his whole M O, and trying something new that might work? Whatever that might be, and I have no expert suggestions.

Are the players ready to work through the issues, come together as a team and give it their all?

Is it time for a bold change coming down from the main office behind The Thinker?

?????

Nothing changes if nothing changes.

— c d kaplan