Louisville basketball was far from perfect on Sunday night, but the Cardinals made due with an extremely thin roster in a win over visiting Prairie View A&M.
Here are a few quick takeaways.
This is Chris Mack’s Louisville basketball team now
This team has Chris Mack’s finger prints all over. As corny and cliche as that sounds, we are finally seeing what a group of guys that Chris Mack has recruited to play in his system looks like under his tuteledge.
This is an extremely young squad right now, but the Cardinals are inclined to play his style, and it is paying dividends.
Where in his first two years Mack’s Louisville squads spread the floor and preferred to shoot it from deep, this team loves to get it inside crash the boards.
Okay, maybe that’s why Jae’Lyn Withers was starting
In the offseason, Mack talked about how he loved what he was seeing from redshirt freshman Jae’Lyn Withers. However, Withers got off to a rocky start in Louisville’s first two games while true freshman JJ Traynor seemed like the more veteran player.
On Sunday, Withers started hot and kept the ball rolling, finishing the game with 20 points, 9 rebounds, and an assist on 8-for-10 shooting.
Withers was solid across the board, altering shots on the defensive end, crashing the boards, and showing he can score on every level.
Louisville has had bigs in the past that can put in on the floor. They’ve had bigs who can knock down the three. Withers can do that and much more. He can be a face-up big, he can use his long strides to slide around a defender, and he can be extremely physical with opposing centers. You have to love what we are seeing from Withers and Traynor so far.
David Johnson found his stride
Finally, perhaps Louisville’s best player, David Johnson, has found his game again.
After steadily improving as the season wore on last year, Johnson came out a bit flat in Louisville basketball’s first two games. However, he showcased all of the things on Sunday that made him such a special player for the Cardinals last year.
Johnson finished with 19 points, 6 assists, and 3 rebounds in an all-around solid performance.
It’s clear that Johnson wants to show that he is an improved shooter from beyond the arc. That’s great, too. But, what makes him a special player is his ability to see the floor and distribute the basketball; that’s his bread and butter.
Remember how Montrezl Harrell came back for his junior season and was hellbent on showing the world that he could shoot it from three? That was great, but Montrezl Harrell isn’t a three-point shooting specialist. He thought he needed to prove himself in a area that was the furthest from his specialty, and now he has carved out a place as a center in the NBA.
In the same way, Johnson can certainly become a three-point shooter for the Cards, but why fix what isn’t broken? Johnson is an elite driver and distributor, and he finishes at the basket at a high rate. Johnson is efficient in the mid-range, and has freakish size and athleticism for his position. If he can shoot the ball, awesome. That, however, is not what Louisville basketball needs from Johnson in 2020-21. He took what PVAM gave him, and it turned out to be beneficial for the Cardinals.
Louisville resumes play on Tuesday against Western Kentucky. Let’s all hope and pray that either Samuell Williamson or Josh Nickelberry is able to return to action.
