The Floyd Street Tribune: The soul-searching commences for Louisville basketball

Inside: Three consecutive one-point losses have Louisville off to a difficult start under first-year coach Kenny Payne. What the heck is up with the Cardinals?

Thanks for reading The Floyd Street Tribune! Miss the last newsletter or TFST Extra? I wrote about the historic moment of Kenny Payne’s debut … and the frustrating results of the Bellarmine and Wright State games. This week: We have a frank discussion. For just $7 a month, paid subscribers receive each newsletter in full and have access to each newsletter via the main TFST page.

Big picture: Where does this thing go?

The last time Louisville started a season 0-3 was 1986-87, the campaign after a national title run. The Cards opened at No. 2 in the AP Top 25, but back-to-back-to-back losses to Northeastern (88-84 OT), Washington (69-54) and Texas (74-70) knocked U of L out of the Top 25, and Denny Crum’s squad never returned to the national rankings that season en route to an 18-14 record.

“I told everybody that we weren’t very good and that we’d have a difficult time beating anybody,” Crum said at the time. “Nobody believed me. Now maybe they do.”

Here we are, the length of my lifetime since that “Great Alaska Shutout” as The Courier-Journal humorously dubbed the 0-3 start at the time, staring at another 0-3 Louisville. These Cards are the first team since at least 1980 to open a season with three consecutive one-point losses. Each of those defeats have their own stories, but they each possess threads that weave together into an ugly overall product, worse than your grandma’s home-knit sweater for Christmas that is 19 sizes too big for you. And not only is this start ugly — it is just as befuddling as your grandma sewing you a sweater and thinking you’d like it.

I have had a handful of people ask me what’s wrong with Louisville. Are the Cards this bad? My answers typically revolve around a general theme: I don’t really know what’s up with this group. This coaching hire was predicated on finding someone who so deeply connects with Louisville basketball, who is a living embodiment of the program at its greatest heights, who loves this city so much that he motivates the Cards to play as hard as ever for this program and community. It was about connecting with players on a deeper level. Maybe all of that will happen in due time, and maybe the relationships and bonds that are forming will lead Kenny Payne’s Louisville teams to that desired destination. But right now, I see a team that has consistency and effort problems and a coach who is still trying to find his footing.