Seedy K’s GameCap: Lenoir-Rhyne

There are lots of questions about this year’s U of L Men’s Basketball Team.

The answer to just about all of them is the same.

Patience.

Not a virtue that comes easy in these what’s happening right this nanosecond times.

But one the University of Louisville team and Red & Black Faithful must dig deep and find and hold onto.

How long has been the wait for the NCAA ruling?

The answers regarding the Kenny Payne Era will come sooner.

But, alas, not soon enough for some.

The Cardinals’ opening exhi L to Everick Sullivan’s Lenoir-Rhyne squad was inauspicious to say the least.

It is, let’s be honest, but the first of many disappointments to come this campaign.

This is a flawed group of players. Playing together for the first time for a rookie head coach, and a new staff, under a new system.

With all the psychological strains that come from that convergence of events.

Your BW/LTCD (Beat Writer/ Long Time Cardinal Diehard. Commit it to memory, It shall not be explained again) walked disconsolately into the chilly gray rainy late afternoon after the loss. Zipping up the hood of his rain jacket, he thought, how appropriate the weather.

He almost let this game story, such as it is, pass unwritten, waiting until after Chaminade to weigh in.

Ob la di, ob la dah. Life goes on. So too the obligations here.

* * * * *

Some questions were answered.

Like, who might be in the starting lineup?

El Ellis and Syd Curry were givens. Brandon Huntley-Hatfield, a probable. Jae’Lyn Withers and Mike James, the question marks.

That the latter duo started is fascinating in context.

Neither practiced with the squad full time until this past week. Given their marginally better performances than their mates, it’s now understood why they opened on the hardwood.

That they seemed more willing to break out of KP’s pass pass pass imperative that befuddled the rest is probably a testament to the twosome’s lack of practice. The others seemed scared of busting a move, tentative, thinking more than reacting.

Only Syd Curry of the rest took it consistently hard to the hoop. To little effect.

Yet, that nugget of assessment is arguably too much. And unfair.

This is a program on the edge of the cusp of the beginning of rearrangement and rejuvenation.

Patience, my man, patience.

The nervousness on the court was palpable. So too, the fear of making a mistake. Shots were short-armed. Drives and rebounding, meek.

Enough already.

Patience.

The Cards did not look good. At times, they looked bad.

They will get better. They are not without talent.

Their time will come.

Their time did not come today.

— c d kaplan