Naithan George (0), Lance Terry and Javian McCollum combined for eight assists and no turnovers at Notre Dame. (photo by Danny Karnik)
They don’t have the best record.
They don’t even have the longest win streak.
But there may not be a hotter team in the ACC, if not the country, than Louisville, which has won 10 straight dating back to December 21. Of the Cardinals’ nine straight ACC wins, eight have come by double figures. During that span, Louisville:
- Dealt Clemson its lone ACC loss of the season
- Handed Wake Forest its largest margin of defeat of the season (29 points)
- Gave Syracuse its largest home loss of the season (24 points)
- Rained down 19 threes in a 98-73 rampage of SMU on the road
It’s a far cry from the Louisville team that staggered to a 5-35 ACC record over the past two seasons. First-year head coach Pat Kelsey re-seeded through the transfer portal, building a roster that features a nation’s-leading 12 seniors, and after a spate of early injuries, the Cardinals have clearly hit their stride.
They’ve done it behind an offense that sprays threes at the third highest volume in the country, with 51.6% of the Cardinals’ shots coming from behind the arc. Louisville plays a five-out, whip-around style, with point guard Chucky Hepburn leading the Cardinals in scoring (15.0 ppg) and leading the ACC in assists (6.4). Guard Reyne Smith ranks second in the nation in three-pointers (82) and sprints off screens with an impossibly quick trigger. Six-foot-6 wing Terrence Edwards Jr. (13.5 ppg), last year’s Sun Belt Player of the Year at James Madison, scored 21 points against Duke and gives Louisville an athletic streak shooter. The Cardinals will also initiate offense at the top with 6-6 J’Vonne Hadley, a teammate of Luke O’Brien’s at Colorado who had 32 points against Clemson.
Louisville thrives as a hard-playing, drive-and-kick team that plays well in random situations. Among the keys for Tech: communicate well through switches, locate shooters in transition, and crash the defensive glass. Despite their small-ball tendencies, Louisville regularly sends four players to the boards. The Cardinals’ confidence can occasionally bleed into reckless shot-taking.
It may be in the official Oxford dictionary, but the reference has become obscure, if not obsolete, among the current generation. Sure, we live in the era of streaming services and unlimited show libraries, but how many college basketball players are familiar with a 40-year-old TV series?
So imagine the shock on assistant coach Nate Babcock’s face when he off-handedly remarked that a student manager needed to “MacGyver” something, and Baye Ndongo, overhearing it, broke into a broad smile.
It turns out the original, 1980’s, MacGyver series aired on television in his native Senegal. And Ndongo was a faithful viewer.
“My family would all watch it,” he told me.
To “MacGyver” something, of course, means to repair something in an improvised way using whatever objects are on hand. And yes, Ndongo fully understood Babcock’s reference.
It only feels like Georgia Tech has had to MacGyver its offense, with its revolving door of absences and Rockettes line of walking boots on the bench.
And yet, Tech has averaged better than a point per possession in each of its last three games. The Cardinals like to force teams to play on the edge of chaos; the Jackets will need to keep their discipline, be strong with their cuts, and avoid the pick-sixes that Louisville likes to hunt.
Naithan George, Javian McCollum and Lance Terry combined for 8 assists and 0 turnovers against Notre Dame. They’ll needs to keep their handles tight against Hepburn, a serial agitator who leads the ACC in steals, and Hadley, a hawkish, high motor defender. Perhaps it’s an offshoot of their activity, but the Cardinals allow the highest free throw rate in the ACC in conference play.
