Kenny Payne explains having 22 turnovers against Florida A&M
Louisville finally got its first victory of the season on the basketball court last week, surpassing 90 points in a barn-burner at home to defeat Western Kentucky. Then, the Cards parlayed that positive result into the second win of the season on Saturday over Florida A&M. While Louisville won that one by six, the team definitely performed worse than they did vs. WKU.
Florida A&M is rated as one of the worst college basketball teams in the country according to KenPom, and Louisville struggled to put them away. The main reason why: turnovers. Louisville turns the ball over more than almost anyone in the country, and that problem was on full display Saturday as the Cards coughed the ball up 22 times in a standard 40-minute game. You can do the math, that’s at least one every other minute. Hard to be efficient on offense when hemorrhaging possessions at that rate.
Head coach Kenny Payne was upset about the turnover issues, which returned in a major way after a good day vs. the Hilltoppers earlier in the week. Payne says the guys were hesitant on offense and lacked confidence in some of their plays and passes.
“I just think tonight was a little different. Typically it happens, you know, in the flow of a game where we get three or four turnovers and they may not press. But tonight, you know, it was more about guys being nervous about throwing an over-the-top pass back and forth and being hesitant. And as they’re being hesitant and trying to make sure the guard opposite is sliding up — or Jaelyn [Withers] winding up a pass to throw it up the sideline, but the guy’s coming up. Like you got to make a pass, you got to be confident, and really you got to face up and be ready to beat your man off the dribble and then look to pass.”
Payne continued, harping on the importance of playing with confidence in order to avoid turning the ball over.
“We’ll continue to work on it. We’ll continue to try to get better at it. A little bit upset, you know, how we came out. And I’m trying to help them build confidence. I don’t want us to play a game and I’m looking at them saying…guys, that look on your face, get it off. I want them to be confident. I don’t care about the mistakes, I care about the way it looks. The way the mistake looks, it looks like you’re nervous, you’re tentative. You should not play basketball like that. We got to build confidence, if that makes sense to you.”
Makes all the sense in the world. Any basketball fan can observe that giving the ball away on offense is an easy way to end up on the wrong side of the scoreboard. Cards were lucky to still escape with the victory. However, with ACC play around the corner, 22-turnover games simply can’t happen. Kenny Payne wants to see the issue improved upon.