Louisville basketball faces toughest test yet against Mississippi State
Mike Pegues is an admirer of the KFC Yum! Center.
Aesthetically, the Louisville assistant coach said, it’s the best arena in college basketball. It has what he called the “best fans.” It gives the Cardinals a potent homecourt edge.
He loves the place. And Pegues is fired up to leave it.
As Louisville (3-1) prepares to meet Mississippi State (4-0) at the Baha Mar Hoops Bahamas Championship in Nassau, Pegues – Louisville’s acting head coach as Chris Mack serves a university-mandated six-game suspension – figures a change of venue might do his squad some good.
“For a new team that hasn’t been out there to be playing in front of that (Yum! Center) crowd – without their head coach, with the fans kind of sitting on their hands a little bit at times and being unsure as to what our group is about – I’m sure provided an extra sense of anxiety that hopefully we don’t have to deal with on the road,” Pegues said. “Because now it’s just us.”
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Louisville had a tumultuous offseason, and the season is off to an inauspicious start, marred by inconsistent play and an upset loss to Furman. The average announced attendance for home games is 12,464 – well below the Yum! Center’s listed capacity of 22,090.
So in theory there’s some value in escaping it all.
And there are worse places for an escape than the Bahamas.
Not that Pegues wants the Cards to detach too much from reality.
“I know the weather will be nice, the water will be blue, palm trees, the whole nine,” Pegues said. “But hopefully our guys aren’t going down there with that in mind. If we can manage to enjoy the trip a little bit in the midst of preparing for a very good Mississippi State team, then I’m good with that.”
Beyond a getaway and maybe some sand and surf, Louisville’s looking to get two things out of the trip.
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For starters, there’s battling the Bulldogs.
Undefeated Mississippi State has handled four opponents by an average margin of 24 points. It has a 77-64 win against Detroit Mercy, a team that scrapped back from a 14-point deficit at Louisville and lost 73-67.
On Saturday, the Cards face a date with Maryland or Richmond to close out their stay in Nassau. The Terrapins (4-1) started the season ranked No. 21 in the Associated Press poll but dropped out after an upset loss to George Mason. The Spiders are 3-2 but ranked 64th nationally at KenPom.com. Entering this week’s games in the Bahamas, Louisville’s highest-ranked opponent so far has been Furman, 112th in Ken Pomeroy’s ratings.
Before the Cards concern themselves with Saturday’s game, they’ll face their stiffest test yet in Mississippi State, No. 43 at KenPom.com.
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The Bulldogs start a pair of ACC transfers – guard Shakeel Moore from N.C. State and power forward Garrison Brooks from North Carolina – and have “a force at almost every position,” Pegues said, none more forceful than Iverson Molinar. Pegues said the Bulldogs guard is “like a baby Russell Westbrook – with a better jump shot.”
Like Molinar at Mississippi State, Westbrook at UCLA was coached by Ben Howland, who took the Bruins to three Final Fours. Pegues has been an acting head coach for four games.
“I don’t know that we’re gonna win the coaching battle,” Pegues said with a laugh. “Quite honestly, he’s done this a lot longer than me. He’s got a much better feel for it. But it’s not a coaching game. The players decide the game, and I’ll try not to get in the way of our guys winning the game.”
Cardinals seeking early identity
In addition to the competition, Louisville is focused internally – on its effort and execution at the defensive end and, perhaps most critically, its inconsistency.
So part of the goal of this week’s trip is to bring its players together outside of their typical environment, to get them on the road and hope that they pass an early chemistry test. For his part, senior Malik Williams is anxious both to make use of a passport – it’ll be his first time out of the country – and to pass a pair of early tests.
“I just want to take it all in and sightsee and see as much things and experience as much things as I can, but at the end of the day get those two wins,” Williams said. “That’ll make the trip amazing.”
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Louisville has, in stretches, looked like a team capable of being the best in the Baha Mar field. And at times it’s seemed like a team that could go 0-2 on the trip. When the Cardinals turn stops into transition scores, they can pile points on the board. When they struggle to force missed shots – or to grab rebounds when they do – they tend toward a passive pace that stagnates the scoring.
But U of L still is finding its way through a rebuilt roster and a new-look system. Growing pains are to be expected, a learning curve anticipated.
This week provides a chance to get away and tinker – and maybe to alter the early trajectory of a sluggish start.
“This team hasn’t been together for even a year, let alone two years like some of the other teams that we’ve already faced and we will face,” Pegues said. “And so going down there to the Bahamas and winning two games against two really good teams – obviously every team is a good team – would be huge for this team in terms of building camaraderie and trust, and I think guys would be really excited about the fact that, like, ‘Hey, we beat two really good teams. We can beat anybody.’”
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville basketball's schedule gets tougher with Bahamas tournament
