U of L ready for ACC debut
Few things better illustrate the constant change in college sports over the last century like the University of Louisville basketball team's history books.
Louisville has been a member of seven conferences since 1925 –the KIAC, OVC, MVC, Metro, C-USA, Big East and AAC – and the Cardinals officially begin play in an eighth league on Sunday night.
Fifth-ranked Louisville (12-1) travels to Wake Forest (9-6) for its Atlantic Coast Conference debut, which tips off at 8 p.m. and will be broadcast on television by ESPNU.
The Cardinals are 4-3 in their previous seven conference debuts, though they've won three of their last four. But Sunday's opener doesn't seem to be all that big of a deal to U of L, or at least to head coach Rick Pitino.
Pitino has joked several times in recent months about already playing in three other conferences in his 14 seasons at Louisville, and on Friday he said he isn't all that focused on the league change as much as he's concentrating on Wake Forest.
"Wake Forest is a team that is continually getting better," Pitino said. "They're a very difficult team to play against. They're very good in transition, and they're a very good half-court defensive team because they pack it in … They'll be a challenge for us."
Pitino's looking for a bit smoother of a performance from his Cards after a recent stretch struggles.
Louisville looked sluggish in three mismatch wins over UNC Wilmington, Cal State Northridge and, most recently, Long Beach State. The Cardinals scratched and clawed past Western Kentucky back on Dec. 20, and only produced one assist in a painful 58-50 loss to Kentucky last Saturday.
Against Long Beach State, Pitino experimented with a different starting lineup, hoping to get talented freshman big man Anas Mahmoud and streaky scorer Shaqquan Aaron into more of a flow with the Cards' primary rotation.
Mahmoud, a 7-footer from Egypt, is still projected to start in Sunday's game, but senior point guard Chris Jones is expected to start again after the one-game Aaron test.
Part of Louisville's struggles on offense have come from a lack of ball movement and poor shot choices, and Jones in particular has become the source of some U of L fan ire in recent weeks.
He's shooting 30.8 percent from the field and has produced just 35 assists against 29 turnovers in 13 games this season, though his on-ball defense has been among the best in the nation. Getting him to play at his best on the offensive end is one of Louisville's big challenges as league play begins.
"I explained to Chris the other day he was 6 for 36 off the (dribble), taking off-balance shots," Pitino said.
"I said Chris, 'You're one of the top three shooters on our team, if not the best open shooter, so what you have to strive for is, when you go down the lane and you don't have a shot, do what Peyton Siva used to do and keep on dribbling, dribble it back out and get a better shot, or look for someone or for yourself.'"
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But it would be foolish to blame all of Louisville's offensive woes on Jones, and Pitino's said as much.
Similar to the Aaron-Jones situation, Mahmoud's insertion into the lineup was as much of an attempt to see if Mahmoud could play as it was to bench struggling big men Chinanu Onuaku and Mangok Mathiang.
Onuaku and Mathiang have not produced enough from the center position, particularly on offense, and Mahmoud's the next guy in line to try and ramp up the scoring from the five spot.
Wake Forest was picked to finish 12th in the talented 15-team ACC, and Louisville has games against Clemson (picked 11th) and Virginia Tech (picked last) in the coming days. As Pitino works to solve his team's maturity issues off the court, he's hoping they can solve their offensive woes on it.
Sunday's a good chance to do that.
Reach U of L beat writer Jeff Greer at (502) 582-4044 and follow him on Twitter (@jeffgreer_cj).