Louisville basketball travels to Chestnut Hill to face a pesky Boston College squad. Live updates throughout.
Who: Louisville @ Boston College
When: Saturday, January 2nd @ 12:00 PM
Where: Conte Forum, Chestnut Hill, MA
TV: ACC Network Extra (Fox Sports Go Mobile App w/ TV subscription)
Radio: 790 WKRD (Paul Rogers, Bob Valvano)
Spread check: Louisville -5
Streaks: Louisville W1, BC L1
11:52 AM: Good morning, folks. A couple of things to note in the pre-game. Charles Minlend is still listed as unavailable after once again traveling and warming up with the team.
Official tip-off is 12:04 PM.
12:01 PM: If the game is blacked out for you on AACNX, you can find it on the Fox Sports Go app with an applicable log-in.
Early, Louisville basketball looking much more active on offense. Two good looks for Jones and Williamson just don’t go. David Johnson is likely going to get what he wants as the game progresses.
On defense, the Cardinals get lost on a switch leading to an open three ball from the Eagles.
BC’s Ashton-Langford, a former Louisville recruit, will be a formidable match-up for Jones.
16:41: Chris Mack is forced to use a quick timeout after BC storms out to a 10-3 lead. Louisville has gotten Sam Williamson in a good spot twice for open looks, but BC is owning the glass, which is leading to subsequent fast breaks for the Eagles.
15:59, 1H: BC goes to a zone, and Louisville immediately knows how dissect it. A good look for Johnson at the elbow becomes a better look, and and-1 opportunity for Jae’Lyn Withers.
Louisville will settle in. Obviously BC wants to zone to limit mismatches on drives and force the Cardinals to make tough shots. However, Louisville’s length may force the Eagles to switch things up.
15:05: Withers quickly picks up his second foul. This will, obviously, be something to watch going forward.
It cannot be emphasized enough how good Carlik Jones is. BC cannot keep him out of the lane, and he has made multiple plays knocking balls away and winning 50-50 balls.
10:35 1H: Apparently, Boston College is going to keep zoning Louisville and the Cardinals are going to keep attacking with supreme confidence. Cards trail 15-14, but the momentum has shifted quite a bit after a quick start from the Eagles.
9:39: BC is forced to take a timeout after Louisville takes a 20-15 lead. Eagles are still zoning and the Cards are getting whatever they want. Quinn Slazinski made a good slash for an easy bucket early in the half. He has made two great passes to free up an outside shot for the Cards.
7:39, 1H: Josh Nickelberry just drew his second charge of the first half. Boston College vehemently disagrees, but JN’s feet were set.
Louisville’s scoring run is at 10-0 right now as the Eagles settle for a lot of threes.
Samuell Williamson is clearly struggling right now, but I don’t have any issue with him working through it. After two very rough possessions, he makes a great pass for an assist and gets a back-to-the-basket shot to go.
Carlik Jones continues to impress on the boards.
Slazinski does a lot of little things on both ends that won’t be talked about much, but are important to note.
2:42, 1H: A David Johnson three on a second-chance opportunity pushes the Louisville lead to eight, 29-21. Johnson’s three makes today give him the lead in made 3’s on the team after he only made 5 last season.
Louisville is clearly the superior team here in every way. However, Jim Christian is clearly building something at Boston College. It helps to have a couple guys like Ashton-Langford and Tabbs, but BC is no slouch.
First Half Thoughts
Louisville leads 37-24
David Johnson: 14 points, 4/5 3pt, 5/9 FG, 2 assists, 0 TO | Carlik Jones: 2/7 shoot, 6 points, 7 rebounds, 1 assist
Louisville: 13 points off turnovers, 20 points in the paint.
After Boston College got out to a 10-3 lead in less than four minutes, Louisville led 34-14 the rest of the half.
There are a lot of areas where Louisville is going to need to keep improving. They are turnover-prone, have a tendency to get out of position on defense, and they need more consistency from Sam Williamson.
However, Jones and Johnson are the Cards’ bread and butter. In college basketball, you play to your strengths, and there are only a handful of teams in the country that are going to be able to handle Louisville’s strenghts.
Johnson and Jones began the game aggressively driving and creating by getting past defenders. As a result, BC had to go to a zone and respect DJ and CJ’s driving abilities. This opened things up, specifically for Johnson, beyond the arc.
On defense, Louisville has done a solid job, but a couple of things to consider:
- Louisville is in foul trouble. Dre Davis has 3, Withers, Jones, and Williamson have 2. The Cardinals have been aggressive on D, but I’d expect the Eagles to try to force Louisville’s hand defensively.
- Boston College hits a lot of three pointers. The Eagles finished the first half only 2-14 from three.
The three-point shot is the great equalizer. BC came storming back to take the lead at NC State earlier this week. They ultimately lost the game in the waning moments, but the point is that the Eagles are not out of this game, and can mount a comeback as they trend towards the norm.
15:21, 2H: A major factor in this game has been the block/charge calls. Louisville has now drawn, by my count, 6 charges. With this being a socially distanced, low-production, game with only two camera angles, the replays have been at a minimum. Thus far, however, it looks like if the defender leaves his feet, a foul has been called. If the defender is there in time and there’s any contact between two players, no foul is called. Basically.
Anyways, Louisville leads in this one by 12. As I foreshadowed at the half, BC has already knocked down two threes in the second period.
10:31, 2H: Louisville 49, Boston College 42. Well, we talked about this a bit over the last week, but Louisville basketball is just not very good at holding double digit leads. It happened quite a bit over Chris Mack’s first two seasons, and the Cardinals let a 10-point lead slip late against Seton Hall, then a 7-point lead turned into a nail-biter against Kentucky.
The main thing that you can attribute the blown 17-point lead against BC to is lady passing, inattentiveness on defense, and just getting sloppy in general. Now BC is getting active in the passing lanes and crisper on offense.
7:57, 2H: Louisville 56, Boston College 45. Guess who got the ball rolling in the right direction again. Carlik Jones.
It has been Jones finding the open men before the BC has gotten the defense set that opened the lead back up to double digits.
Also, you have to admire David Johnson’s determination to get literally every defensive rebound in the second half.
A lineup of Johnson, Jones, Slazinski, Williamson, and Withers has been doing a fantastic job opening the lead back up. Perhaps Louisville’s best defensive lineup?
4:43: Samuell Williamson fouls out of the game on a pretty questionable call. On the other end, yet another puzzling charge call when Withers puts it on the floor.
3:52, 2H: Final media timeout and Louisville is holding on to a 61-48 lead that could be much larger. Would love to see Louisville finish this one strong.
Notable: With Withers in foul trouble, Louisville turns to Gabe Wiznitzer instead of JJ Traynor. G Wiz gets a big-time offense rebound, collects, and scores to put Louisville up 15.
1:27: It’s clear why Rick Pitino recruited Ashton-Langford so hard when he was at Louisville. MAL has been giving David Johnson all kinds of trouble in the full court press. BC pulls within 10 but may be too short on time.
As the announcers pointed out, there was a massive discrepancy between Louisville and Boston College’s free throw attempts. With :47 left, BC has made 9 more free throws than Louisville has attempted.
Louisville is going to put this one away. David Johnson finishes with 20 points and the Cards win 76-64.
Stay tuned for some quick takeaways after the game.
