The Louisville Men’s Basketball team trailed the majority of the game before falling 78-72 at Miami (FL) on Saturday night. The Cards are 9-2 overall and 4-1 in the ACC. Miami is now 6-6 and 2-5.
Carlik Jones led Louisville with 25 points and 7 assists. Jae”Lyn Withers had 18 points and 11 rebounds. Dre Davis added 11 points for the Cards. Louisville shot 45 percent from the field and connected on only 3 of its 20 three-point attempts.
For Miami, Isaiah Wong led all scorers with 30 points, 6 rebounds, and 7 assists. Elijah Olaniyi had 15 points and 10 points for the Canes. Matt Cross added 16 points and 4 boards.
Louisville scored just 12 points through the first 14 minutes of the game, trailing by as many as 13 points in the first half before going into the break down 33-21. After only scoring 21 in the first half, the Cards put up 23 points in the first seven minutes of the second half to cut the Miami lead to 45-44. That is as close as it would be though as Miami held on for a 6-point victory at home over the 16th-ranked Cardinals.
This loss is going to sting. Coming off one of their better performances of the season against Virginia Tech, Louisville came out and gave their most uninspiring performance of the season. Sure, they had to deal with a couple stellar individual performances from Miami, but this Canes team only played seven players all night and was missing four major contributors.
At times it seemed like Carlik Jones and Jae”Lyn Withers were the only ones awake for this Louisville team on Saturday. You can only hope that this game serves as an outlier, but the Cards let an inferior Miami team control this game from the jump. Luckily, we have seen a lot better from Louisville against much better teams. They are still in good shape regarding the ACC standings, but a huge stretch awaits this team. Saturday night was a major wake-up call for the 2020-21 Cardinals. Now, we will see how they respond after this forgettable performance in Miami.
Up Next:
Louisville hosts Florida State Monday night at 7:00 on ESPN.
