By Russ Brown
Special to NKyTribune
LOUISVILLE — The University of Louisville basketball team earned many new admirers, foremost of which is Michigan State coach Tom Izzo, with its spirited — and surprisingly strong — performance in Wednesday night’s 71-67 road loss to the Spartans.
But now UofL fans face another long wait to get a second gauge on their team. That will come on Dec. 26, when the No. 24/22 Cardinals (5-1) visit Rupp Arena to take on a Kentucky team that is likely to still be ranked in the top 10, despite its 87-77 upset loss at UCLA Thursday night.
Until then, Louisville followers and poll voters will have to be content with another string of blowouts against inferior teams in the KFC Yum! Center. The Cards will open a six-game homestand Saturday at noon against Grand Canyon University and the toughest remaining test — if it can be called a test — before the trip to Rupp Arena is against Western Kentucky (4-3), which was picked to finish sixth in C-USA.
UofL, a six-point underdog and playing its first true road game of the season, had Michigan State (8-0) on its heels early, building a 13-point lead, but couldn’t hang on in the final minutes.
That was due mostly to Spartan star Denzel Valentine, who scored 11 of his game-high 25 points in the final 5:06, including a tie-breaking 3-pointer and six free throws in a row.
It remains to be seen if the Cardinals will rise in the polls next week or drop out, but they gained at least one knowledgable fan.
“I’m sitting here happy with the win,” Izzo said during his post-game press conference. “But more impressed with Louisville than Michigan State at this point. Just because I think they played so doggone hard. . .This was a big game to win. We beat a good team. That’s a Top 10, 15 team, I promise you. And they’re going to get better.”
We don’t know what Pitino thought about his team’s performance because he skipped both his post-game radio show and press conference, instead sending assistant coach Ralph Willard.
Pitino has made himself scarce to the media this season, a responsibility he is paid a hefty sum for in his $5 million contract. He is apparently upset at some of the stories/columns that have been written regarding the ongoing investigations into an alleged sex scandal in the basketball program, with a number of national writers having called for his firing or resignation.
Pitino hasn’t conducted the usual pre-game meetings with the media for the first time during his first 14 seasons and has skipped several of his post-game press conferences, also a rare occurrence in the past. His absence is all the more uncharacteristic because he has always been, as he has put it, “media-friendly” during his tenure at UofL.
But his current behavior is beginning to draw heat from even his friends in the media. In a column following UofL’s loss to MSU, Eric Crawford of WDRB.com, who co-authored Pitino’s book, “The One-Day Contract,” had this to say:
“This case of the disappearing head coach needs to stop. I know fans don’t care what coaches do with the media. But I’m betting more than a few were interested in hearing from him after this game. . .It’s part of the job.
“He’s better than most in the game at standing in front of the bright lights and smiling and selling the program. Right now, it’s going to get trashed most times it appears on ESPN, if the fan feedback from Wednesday’s ESPN broadcast is any indication. If he wants a counter-voice to that, it needs to be him, and Wednesday night was a prime opportunity.”
And speaking of trashing. . . During the ESPN broadcast, analyst Dan Dakich said that Pitino shouldn’t be coaching due to the problems in the program and that if he were an athletic director or university president, Pitino would not be coaching until the situation was resolved.
Here is some of what Dakich said:
“There’s so many layers to it. There’s the NCAA part of it. There’s a criminal investigation. To me, it doesn’t matter whether Coach Pitino knew or didn’t know. It shouldn’t happen under anybody’s watch. . .I would not have Coach Pitino as my coach. When these things come out, you just can’t tolerate that as an institution. . .This isn’t the only thing that, over the last five years, has come out with Louisville.
“You can’t have these things continue, no matter how successful your basketball program is, they cloud your university.”
While Pitino wasn’t talking, Izzo heaped praise on the Cardinals, who had lost most of their major contributors from last year’s 27-9 team that lost to the Spartans 76-70 in overtime in the Elite Eight.
“That was a typical Louisville-Michigan State game. White-knuckler right down to the end,” Izzo said. “I feel fortunate to win. I almost feel like we stole it, and you’ve got to do that in order to have a great season. I wouldn’t say we didn’t deserve to because we fought back, but I thought they (uofL) played awfully well for a long period of time. They did a lot of good things. They’re a very, very well-coached team.”
Izzo said some of those things had to do purely with effort.
“It doesn’t take practice to learn how to dive on loose balls,” he said. “They brought energy; we didn’t. I can’t tell you how much credit I give them. I told Rick after the game, they did things we usually do.”
Valentine agreed, saying that Louisville “played really well. They brought the toughness, physicality, rebounded and made plays.”
Pitino talked to his players in the locker room about 20 minutes after the game, then Damion Lee and Trey Lewis, who combined for 44 points, came out to meet the media.
“We played well enough to win this game,” Lewis said. “We played great in the first half. It’s heartbreaking. This hurts, but as a young team we’re going to go through experiences like this. It’s good to go through this early.”
True enough. The encouraging thing for the Cards is if they play that well and that hard the rest of the season and keep improving — and there’s no reason to think they won’t — they’ll be a major factor in the ACC and NCAA Tournaments.
We’ll know more about that on Dec. 26.
GRAND CANYON–Most fans probably aren’t familiar with Grand Canyon, which is a private Christian University in Phoenix and is a member of the Western Athletic Conference.
They probably have heard of their coach, Dan Majerie, a former star at Central Michigan and a two-time NBA All-star with the Phoenix Suns. Grand Canyon, picked to finish second in the WAC behind New Mexico State, will take a 6-0 record into Thursday night’s home contest against Central Michigan. Louisville will be the Lopes’ first road game.
The Cards will face two more WAC teams this month in the Billy Minardi Classic — Missouri Kansas City (picked third) on Dec. 22 and Utah Valley (sixth) on Dec. 23.