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There is a famous Seinfeld episode where George’s father, Frank, learns a new “relaxation technique”. Every time Mr. Constanza realizes his blood pressure is going up, he is supposed to relax and say “serenity now”.
Of course, in true Costanza fashion, Frank angrily shouts “SERENITY NOW” like he is demanding his body to go into a peaceful state.
Soon, Jerry’s neighbor, Kramer, begins to apply those practices in his own way, convincing himself that the stress “just melts right off” after a group of kids egg his house.
Of course, anyone who has ever dealt with a stressful situation knows, that bottling up your emotions and pretending that things are okay only leads to eventual blowups down the line.
George’s childhood nemesis, Lloyd Braun, foreshadows this when he mentions that he used the “serenity now” technique and that led to blowups in his life (in previous episodes, it’s implied that Lloyd murdered someone and put their body parts in his freezer).
Of course, by the end of the episode, Frank and Kramer begin having unhinged mental breakdowns when they realize that they would have been just as well off shouting things like “hoochie mama!”
As Louisville basketball fans, we have all been through our stages of grief at this point in the season.
Losing an exhibition game and dropping the opener to Bellarmine was kind of the denial stage. Losing 3 straight one-point games and then getting waxed by opponents in Hawaii moved us closer to the anger stage. We began bargaining by looking for any and every improvement around the mid-non-conference season. This felt like it came to a climax after a solid win over heavily favored Western Kentucky. But big-time losses to schools like Lipscomb and Kentucky put us in that depressive phase. Finally, I think most of us have come to just accept that this is what we are dealing with. The roster isn’t going to change. The attitude and effort are what they are. And 10-20 point losses for the rest of the season are about par for the course.
Still, games against Syracuse, Wake Forest, and then at Clemson on Wednesday night, make me feel like we are cycling through the stages again- Perhaps all of them during the span of a game.
While we have reached that state of acceptance- One that, oftentimes, appears as apathy- there are things that still make us angry.
After all, this is Louisville basketball. The Cardinals are a storied program, and this season is unprecedented.
Listening to John Calipari’s press conference after another game where his Kentucky team came unraveled against an inferior opponent on Tuesday, the hall-of-fame coach of Louisville’s hated rival made a solid point. He told fans to be angry. That they should be angry. It’s UK basketball, and fans should have higher expectations of their team.
I have to say that I agree with John on this one but from the perspective of Louisville basketball. As fans, we should be angry with a 2-15 start to a season, a 2-10 home record, and an 0-6 start to conference play. It’s literally unprecedented. Louisville, nor any ACC team EVER, has begun a season this poorly. And regardless of the circumstances that led to this, nobody- including the coaching staff and players- saw this year ever going this poorly.
So, yes, although we have gone through those stages of grief, it’s totally normal and acceptable to watch Clemson go on a 33-6 run and feel anger.
And as much as I feel I have matured as a fan and supporter of this particular team, trying to rationalize some of the mistakes, find silver linings during another lopsided loss, and accepting moral victories feels much like shouting “serenity now,” and hoping the problems just melt away.
The fact is, I am angry. I am upset. And if you care about the Louisville basketball program, you should be too. Serenity now!
I suppose the best way to look at this season is to analyze the current roster, the improvements- or lack thereof- players are showing and try to make an unbiased assessment of whether a.) Louisville is capable of winning again this season (and how they can do so) and b.) Louisville is capable of making improvements that will give the team momentum it desperately needs to build towards a better season next year.
The Mike James Enigma
It is best to start off with the latter, because, despite everything, I believe we are beginning to see some really promising flashes from some of Louisville’s hopeful future stars.
I believe the conversation begins with Mike James, Louisville’s redshirt freshman guard who has been really solid of late. In the last three games, James has averaged 20 points and 5.7 rebounds per game, while shooting better than 50% from the floor.
This emergence is exactly what Louisville basketball needs. James is becoming a volume scorer that is versatile and able to create his own shot at every level. He is the team’s best three-point shooter and finishes at a high rate through contact.
James has scored 8 or more points in 10 games this season, and looks really solid when Louisville is getting him the ball in rhythm. He has already dialed up games this season where he finished with 16, 17, 19, and 24 points. That is as much as you can ask for from a freshman on a lowly Louisville team.
Here is the problem that I envision with James, however.
Louisville basketball has to find and hold onto foundational pieces in order to begin building the program back in the right direction.
James is probably the best example of a player that Louisville has to hold onto. But the pitch is simple from other coaches: stay at Louisville and continue to be apart of a losing program, or come be a major piece on a winning team.
Louisville has to hold onto James in the offseason in order to begin building on something much bigger.
I believe the same goes with Louisville’s other blossoming contributors, JJ Traynor and Kamari Lands.
It’s probably in the cards for Traynor to remain on board, given his local ties to the program. However, it also feels vital to keep Lands in the fold next year as well. Lands has all of the ability in the world, and feels like another solid offseason can springboard him into a potentially massive sophomore year.
Turnover Turmoil
As things pertain to this season, I am a firm believer that Louisville basketball can notch some wins under its belt if it does one simple thing: Stop turning the damn ball over.
Louisville had 15 turnovers Tuesday against Clemson, 14 times against Wake Forest, 21 times vs. Syracuse, and 15 times against Kentucky.
The Cards turn the ball over 16.6 times per game. That’s good for 346th in the country.
Moreover, per Kelly Dickey, Louisville already has as many “team turnovers” (aka shot clock violations) this season in 17 games than it did in the last two full seasons combined.
Louisville isn’t just turning the ball over in dumb ways. The Cards are doing it in impressively mind-bending ways like stepping on the baseline because of lack of spacial awareness, coughing up the ball with no defender within 5 feet, leaving ones feet with nobody to pass the ball to, shot clock violations, and poor passes into the 3rd row.
It feels like the more UofL tries not to turn the ball over, the more tight the team gets and inevitably continues to turn it over.
The major caveat here is this: Louisville has played right with most of its opponents the last few weeks statistically. The Cards simply just allow stupid, easy baskets far more than the opposition.
The Cards are often outshooting and outrebounding opponents. However, the opposition just makes up these deficits by getting easy run-out dunks or extra possessions.
I am begging Louisville basketball to just find a way to cut those turnovers down to 10-12 a game. Those extra possessions could make all the difference.
Control the turnovers and control your destiny.
Making your own luck
Finally, I want to address something that has been on my mind that I hope can put this season and the circumstances around it into perspective.
I recently heard a metaphor that was profound, but helps frame things and the way we approach life. I thought I’d share it with you today.
This metaphor goes like this:
Imagine you have four trees in your yard and all four trees are blocking the sunlight that comes into your bedroom when you wake up in the morning.
One day, you decide that it’s time to take out the trees that are blocking the sun. So, you get all of your equipment, you prepare everything, and you go down to survey all of the trees in your yard.
You realize that one of the trees has a nest in it with new eggs, and obviously the mother bird hasn’t come back for the day yet.
You decide that rather than taking out all four trees, you’ll take out just three trees and trim just the mama bird’s tree with the nest in it.
When the mama bird returns to the nest that day, she is going to see that three trees are gone and the one that remains is hers. And her nest and her babies are all safe.
She is going to think to herself “wow, what a stroke of luck that only my tree was the one that wasn’t taken down.”
Obviously, that isn’t true because you, as an outsider, actively worked around that tree and that nest, knowing that the mother bird was going to return to that nest and you wanted to protect it.
Of course, from her perspective, it just looks like a stroke of luck.
What I take away from this metaphor is that there really is no such thing as “good luck”. Instead, imagine for a second that the universe is just going about its business. When it discovers that you are working on something that you truly love, that you are meant to do, that you make sacrifices in order to help them come true, the universe will do everything in its power to not get in your way.
This is something that I have found is true in my life.
Perhaps there is no such thing as “good luck” or “destiny.” Instead, when we actively choose to do something with love and with thoughtfulness, and with care, the universe is already moving and working to form around you to protect and nurture the good that you are putting out in the world.
When I do good. When I put my energy into something that is noble, right, and just, I don’t often find that the return on my investment in immediate.
But oftentimes, the results of your labor, your good intent, your goodwill, and hard work doesn’t yield the results that we are looking for right away. Instead, I find that when I am doing things from a perspective of love, things just tend to work themselves out. Not because that is what should happen, but because when you do right by others and by the universe, good things tend to happen. Even if that good is not what my initial expectations were.
Now, imagine with me, Louisville basketball head coach Kenny Payne and his intent and his plans when he took over this program.
When Payne took over, there was no quick fix for what he walked into. He came to a program with many open wounds. He came to a program with fresh scars that were still far from healing.
Payne has talked about the backing he needs from everyone around the program ad nauseum.
“I need this University to support me. Support is very critical. You understand what I mean by support. It’s not when you’re doing good. Support is really when you’re doing bad. (To) this community, I don’t have all the answers. But, I know that I had to take this job and try to help build the answers. I’m one person.”
In his intro presser, Payne continued:
“The community, I need you. More than I can tell you, I need you. My brothers, I need you. I don’t need you to hit me in the head when it gets bad and I know you’re going to want to. This state, I need you. I need you and we need each other and we need to do the right things so that kids come through this program and they achieve their greatness.”
When speaking directly to his son, Zan, KP said this:
“The most important lesson is I did it the right way. Every single day, the right way. I put other people first. I put the job second. But, I put people first, especially kids… I did the right things for one reason. It’s the right thing to do. No agendas, none. In life, things aren’t always promised to you. I didn’t know I would ever end up here. The lesson is this, son. You work your tail off, you do right by people, you be an ambassador for good and your blessings will come.”
And finally, when assessing the future of the program, Payne emphasizes long-term success over short-term, temporary gains.
“There are two different kinds of success,” Payne said in March. “We win for the moment, and it goes away. Then there is sustained success. Which is building a culture of winning with character, integrity, and humbleness. Real success is surrounding young people and having an environment that’s conducive to winning. With each young man that comes through this program being able to win in life and not just a basketball game.”
The general theme and overall tone of Kenny Payne’s comments since his arrival in Louisville has now wavered. Perhaps the messaging has become different, but his words and attitude towards the program, the community, and the position bestowed upon him have never changed.
Payne coaches from the perspective of a loving father figure, a confidant, and someone who wants to do good by his people.
The 2022-23 season has been a mess. No one, including Payne, can deny that. But, it’s important to listen to his words, observe the situation that he is entrenched in, and understand that for people like Payne, things always work out for the best.
Right now, it’s difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but patience, trust in doing the right thing, the right way, and an understanding of how the universe rewards said actions.
It’s impossible to understand why things are going the way that they are. But do know this: basketball is about working together. It’s about knowing that one or two people are not greater than the sum of a team’s parts. Relationship building is vital. Trust, understanding, and, yes, love are all important pieces to success.
When the bird returns to its eggs, it feels lucky. It feels fortunate to have been the recipient of the universes gravitational pull. But the reality is that, more often than not, that “luck” is the result of putting out into the world want you want back.
For Payne, for Louisville basketball, and for those who support the program, it’s important to understand that good things are coming.
Now, it’s just a matter of if we give Payne enough support and enough time.
There may not be serenity now, but there is hope for the future.
