The Floyd Street Tribune: The Thanksgiving Edition

Inside: I think we're all trying to figure out what on earth is going on with Louisville.

Happy Thanksgiving from your ol’ pal Jeff! I’m thankful for you reading The Floyd Street Tribune. Miss the last newsletter? I wrote about the, uh, soul-searching for Louisville men’s basketball. For just $7 a month, paid subscribers receive each newsletter in full and have access to each newsletter via the main TFST page.

Uh, well …

How do you write a newsletter when you’re speechless?

Louisville’s season — and the start to Kenny Payne’s tenure as head coach — could not have started worse, with three consecutive one-point losses to mid-majors. Then the Cards went to Hawaii.

The numbers from Louisville’s three losses in the Maui Invitational are absolutely alarming. The Cards were bad at everything, and outside of freshman Kamari Lands starting to find his shooting touch, U of L comes home without a whole lot of positives to point to from the trip. They were run off the floor three times, and there hasn’t been improvement in any area as a team over six games.

There will always be a next game, and that is especially the case for Louisville with at least 26 more games left this season if we include the ACC Tournament, but the Cards run the risk of serious damage to their future if these struggles, at their current level, continue. The system — and I’m still not quite sure what it exactly is — isn’t working with this roster construction, and the inability or inflexibility to change just results in a team that looks lost.