Florida State men host improved Louisville in ACC home opener this afternoon
It’s not that the Louisville men’s basketball team is suddenly great again under first-year head coach Pat Kelsey. It’s just that the Cardinals aren’t horrible. Not even close actually.
Louisville was 8-24 a season ago and 3-17 in the ACC, which is why Kenny Payne is no longer the Cardinals’ head coach.
Kelsey has come in and immediately turned the program into respectable — and maybe better than that by the time the season is over — and the Cardinals are coming to Tallahassee to take on the Florida State Seminoles (9-3, 0-1 in the ACC) at the Tucker Center this afternoon.
The Cardinals are currently 6-5 overall and 0-1 in the ACC, but all five losses have been to teams currently ranked in the top 20 in the United States. Three of the losses were to teams currently in the top 5.
So, the record might not be indicative yet of just how much better Louisville is this season.
“They’re well-coached,” Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton said of the Cardinals. “They seem to be spreading the floor an awful lot. Which for us is not nearly as much of a problem as it would have been with some of our past teams, because even though we have some young big guys, they’re fairly mobile and they can play five-out a little bit better. They can contain the dribble a little bit better.
“So, this is going to be a different type of team, a different type of system to what we’ve been accustomed to because they don’t really play with a low-post guy. They play with a lot of cutting, a lot of movement, a lot of ball screens and attacking the basket off the dribble. That’s kind of the way it seems everybody is playing these days.”
Louisville is led by Wisconsin transfer guard Chucky Hepburn, who is averaging a team-high 15.2 points and 4.8 assists. Terrence Edwards, Jr., Kasean Pryor and Reyne Smith all average in double-figures as well for Kelsey’s team.
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A team that, despite the barely .500 record, has shown immediate and real progress this season. Keep in mind, Louisville’s five losses this season are to No. 1 Tennessee, No. 4 Kentucky, No. 5 Duke, No. 14 Oklahoma and No. 17 Ole Miss.
Meanwhile, Hamilton’s Florida State team is trying to even its conference record at 1-1 with the home tilt at 2 p.m. today (CW Network).
The Seminoles are coming off an impressive and dominating win over Winthrop on Tuesday night in which they hammered the Eagles on the glass and got double-doubles from both Malique Ewin and Taylor Bol Bowen.
The FSU head coach hopes his team’s rebounding surge continues against the Cardinals as ACC play is about to really crank up. The rest of the season, including today’s contest against Louisville, is made up solely of conference games.
“I think we’re showing that they’re progressing,” Hamilton said of his younger, less-experienced players. “But it’s show-and-tell time now.”
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