CRAWFORD | Louisville brings its new defensive identity to key road test at Pitt | Louisville Sports

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Changing a team’s identity isn’t easy. Throughout the preparation for Pat Kelsey’s first season as University of Louisville basketball coach, we talked about the offense. Everyone was excited about the high-scoring, high-energy attack he would show his opponents.

And he did that for much of the first season. Then basketball happened. That means there were injuries. And bad luck. And sadistic scheduling. And adjustments became necessary.

The Cardinals team that has rattled off five straight wins heading into Saturday’s crucial ACC matchup at noon in Pittsburgh is not the same team that captured the nation’s attention by winning five of its first six games, and is nor the one that lost four of five games thereafter during a 15-day stretch.

The team that takes Kelsey into the jungle at the Peterson Events Center now draws its identity from defense more than anything else. If you want to forget that, you just have to look around the Keuber Center practice complex.

“Defense, that’s our ticket right there,” J’Vonne Hadley said after Saturday’s win over Clemson. “We’re not even worried about our offense. Our offense is running really well and that’s a credit to our hard work in training. But defensively it really matters. And the coach did a good job everywhere.” Go, we see it on the boards, on posters: defense, defense, defense. Tonight it was, ‘Be more physical than the other team.’ He’s doing a really good job of making sure we understand what we need to do.

What the Cardinals (11-5, 4-1 ACC) will have to do Saturday is statistically one of the best offenses they’ve seen all season. Only Duke, Kentucky and Oklahoma (all losses at Louisville) were better.

And if Louisville were to experience a heat wave from outside, Kelsey wouldn’t mind.

Still, he points out that the reason Louisville has been able to employ its best players at less than peak offensive efficiency in recent games and still produce double-digit wins has been on defense, and he has Terrence Edwards Jr. highlighted as a leader in this effort. Edwards is Louisville’s second-leading scorer this season, but has embraced his role as defensive leader and has regularly taken over as the opposition’s leading scorer in recent games.

“He’s been just outstanding the last three games,” Kelsey said. “…His motor was non-stop and relentless. There are seven guys out there because everyone gives a little more of themselves. And that’s how it was in the last three games. And he certainly set the tone.

Pittsburgh (12-3, 3-1 ACC) offers offensive threats from inside and outside, shooting 35.5% from three-point range and 57% from two-point range. The Panthers have a balanced attack led by guards Ishmael Leggett (16.8 points per game) and Jaland Lowe (16.7 points per game). Two other players averaged double figures, and a fifth player, forward Zack Austin, averaged 9.6.

Pitt has won 15 straight at home, its longest home winning streak since 2012. A win over Louisville would give the Panthers their longest home winning streak since 2005-06.

“They are tough. They play hard, they throw the ball back,” Kelsey said. “You have a lot of skills, you know, it’s hard to mention them all. But I think it starts with their backcourt. Coach (Jeff) Capel is a phenomenal coach. I got to know him a little bit at ACC meetings and stuff like that.”

Louisville will look to put together a small winning streak of its own while defying its recent bad luck against the Panthers. The Cards have lost five straight times to Pittsburgh, by an average of 23.4 points. But a win for Louisville would give the program its first six-game winning streak since 2020.

“We have a saying called ‘Road Excellence’ and we say it starts the moment you pack your bags, how you travel, how you move, what our tours look like in the hotel ballrooms, the GBT takes place at the dinner table , at the breakfast table,” Kelsey said. “GBT is about great basketball conversations. I learned this from Cubs manager Joe Madden a few years ago when they won the World Series. He said he loves GBT, great baseball talk on the planes, in the hotels, just in between. “I love great basketball talk. When you pack your bags, you deploy not one, but two pairs of defense, because if you want to win difficult away games, you have to do it at the defensive end. But there is no magic secret recipe… We just have to be tough.

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