After the sheer embarrassment of the past two seasons, I believe most Cards fans just wanted to see effort and competent coaching this season. We wanted to look like a real basketball team, not a group of guys with no idea what their coaches were doing.
We figured Kelsey would bring in excitement with effort and dedication to save the sinking ship that was Louisville basketball. We didn't necessarily believe his first team full of transfers was going to be some world beater, just a competitive team that with some luck could maybe sneak into post season play.
We saw this during the summer and in the early part of the regular season. There wasn't boring, uninspired play against exhibition teams or cupcakes on the schedule. We saw a purpose and it excited the fanbase.
Now injuries are part of the buisness, but what has happened to this team is beyond that. It has derailed all the positive vibes the team had, especially after those first two games in the Bahamas. The decimation of the Hoosiers got the fans and the pundits excited that Louisville hoops was back and good for the game.
But now it's back to the unknown with the team having to re-evaluate its plan of attack now that there's only 8 scholarship players. The expectations from just last week are no longer plausible and for most fans, that is just hard to accept.
We have to remember this is a rebuild and will take more than a season or two. The guys on this team except for Scott and Rooths, know this is their only chance to be part of the rebuilding process and they're going to press a little bit. They're going to take bad shots and they have more pressure on them to make those shots.
They remember the IU game and want so bad to do that again, but they're now realizing that they have a much bigger mountain to climb and they probably won't reach the summit. That's a lot to handle for players who know this is it for their college basketball careers.
We fans should temper our expectations, especially against very good teams. To suggest Kelsey was outcoached by Beard is ridiculous. There wasn't anything Kelsey could have done. Now he needs to adjust his strategy going forward and if and how he does that he can and will be judged.
It's going to take some time though and that's my expectation for the remainder of the season.
