We’re two weeks and change into the college basketball season which means we can officially glean some information from the results and data we’ve thus far seen and accumulated. Whether or not all of it is sticky and prescriptive is probably (definitely!) still to be determined, but opinions are nonetheless being shaped on what we know so far and what we think we know so far. So why not put pen to paper and dole out some small-sample overreactions? (So we can, inevitably, look back on this in a few months and see just how right we were.)
Most teams have played four, maybe five games, so a lot of these are subject to change, of course. And teams can and often do change and evolve throughout the season as injured players return, new teams familiarize themselves and young players develop. But . . . sometimes early-season results are more predictive than we lend credence to. And if they are. . . well, that’s going to be a problem for a few teams (and a boon for a few others.)
Let’s jump right in and start with some lows. You can’t spell most of the word “low” without “Louisville,” so the Cardinals are up first.
Lousy Louisville is the worst team in the ACC
It’s been so bad for Louisville this season that I think, so long as we’re doing early-season overreactions, one could reasonably just cut off “in the ACC” from that prediction and roll with Louisville is the worst team. Kenny Payne’s tenure with the Cardinals is off to a miserable start. Missing out on five-star recruit DJ Wagner was just a taste of how things have been on the court. With a 80-54 blowout loss to No. 9 Arkansas in the Maui Invitational on Monday the Cardinals fell to 0-4 on the season, their worst start in more than eight decades (!!).
On Tuesday it got worse. Louisville had its lowest offensive output in 74 years in a 70-38 loss to No. 21 Texas Tech.
There are myriad reasons why the Cardinals are not a good basketball team…
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