Pat Kelsey is one of the analytically-driven head coaches in college basketball, and as such, he has a natural sworn enemy: the mid-range jump shot. Just 2.7 percent of Louisville’s field goal attempts come from the mid-range (according to CBBanalytics.com), but after Monday night’s loss to No. 18 North Carolina in Chapel Hill, the No. 24 Cardinals’ second loss in three games, it might be time for that number to increase.
Louisville went 0-2 from mid-range on Monday night while hoisting 39 threes, a few more than the Cardinals’ season-long average of 32.9 three-pointers per game. While three is certainly more than two, and that math is irrefutable, Kelsey’s team is painfully predictable on the offensive end, and that has led to too many possessions where they come away with nothing.
While three is more than two, two is more than zero, and unless Louisville can find some offensive versatility, zero could be the number of games that it wins in the NCAA Tournament.
Louisville’s offensive predictability is a glaring Achilles heel heading into March
Not every team on Louisville’s schedule is going to have a rim protector like North Carolina center Henri Veesaar. However, just about every team can recreate some reasonable facsimile of Hubert Davis’s game plan for slowing down Louisville’s offense…