Louisville basketball struggles but tops Florida A&M for second straight win

There was hardly ever a chance for an upset, though the Louisville men’s basketball team took its time in ruling out the possibility.

The win that ultimately came Saturday at the KFC Yum! Center — 61-55 over Florida A&M — had been all but inevitable.

But it was hard not to think, as the Cardinals struggled to pull away in the second half: It’s a good thing these guys beat Western Kentucky.

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Louisville (2-9) failed to build much momentum in beating the Rattlers (2-7).

But if the Cards hadn’t toppled the Hilltoppers on Wednesday, if Saturday had been their first win of the season, it scarcely would have felt like cause for celebration.

Florida A&M entered the day the 358th-rated team in Division I according to college basketball analytics site KenPom.com.

That’s out of 363 teams.

Even when Louisville was winless, even when it was coming off a blowout loss at scuffling Florida State, KenPom.com gave it a 92% chance of beating Florida A&M. By game day, it was 93%. The Cards entered as a 17.5-point favorite.

"Florida A&M played us tough," Louisville coach Kenny Payne said. "Their coach said it: 'I thought your guys will probably try to overlook us.' And I've been saying it for the last couple of days: I don't know how we can overlook anybody."

Ultimately, Louisville took care of business.

But it was an ugly bit of business.

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At one point in the first half, there was a stretch of more than four minutes without a field goal by either team. At halftime, Louisville led 22-20 — against a team whose only wins this season came against Albany State and Edward Waters, a pair of Division II schools.

The game was tied as late as the 14:11 mark of the second half.

The Cards pulled away in part on the shoulders of center Sydney Curry, who had a season-high 13 points and a career-best 19 rebounds, most by a Louisville player since Luke Whitehead had 19 in a 2004 game against Marquette. El Ellis — who followed a 30-point, 10-assist night with a scoreless first half — finished the game with 13 points and seven assists.

Still, the game was a reminder that basketball progress isn’t always steadily upward.

Louisville’s turnover woes — tempered against WKU — came back in force against FAMU. U of L shot 30.4% from the floor in the first half and committed more turnovers before halftime (12) than it had field goals (seven).

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Key player

Curry is giving Louisville more, maybe because there's a little less of him.

Payne credited Curry's statistical uptick — Saturday was his second straight double-digit scoring game after none in the first nine games — to a diet that Payne said has helped the center lose "nine or 10 pounds over the last week and two or three days."

Curry had his first double-double since he put up 24 points and 14 rebounds in last season’s regular-season finale against Virginia.

The 6-foot-8, 270-pound bruiser overmatched the Rattlers physically — and played to his strengths in a way he’s struggled to for much of this season. Curry made 5 of 7 shots and 3 of 6 free throws. Five of his rebounds came at the offensive end. He logged 27 minutes, topping the season high of 24 he set against WKU.

"I'm getting my confidence back," Curry said.

As good as Curry’s numbers looked, he was a Florida A&M target at the defensive end. The Rattlers put him in pick-and-rolls and took advantage of his lack of quickness. They drove the ball at him and put him on his heels.

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"It's easy to say let's zone him up, let's play a zone in the ball screen and let the guard handle it by himself," Payne said. "That's cheating Syd. If we're going to be a good defensive team, I need Syd Curry up on the ball screens and moving his feet. I'm not going to cheat him."

Key stretch

A jumper by A&M’s Jaylen Bates tied the game at 34-34 with 14:11 to play in the second half, and the equalizer seemed to spark the Cards. They answered with a 13-2 run and led 47-36 with 9:58 to play after a pair of Kamari Lands free throws.

That cushion was critical, because Louisville struggled to maintain its distance. Florida A&M was within six points in the final minute.

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Key stat

Louisville committed 13 turnovers in its win against the Hilltoppers on Wednesday. The Cards turned the ball over 12 times in the first half against Florida A&M on Saturday.

The Cardinals finished with 22 turnovers against the Rattlers, tying a season high for a team that has struggled to protect the ball all season. Louisville also had 22 turnovers in a loss to Arkansas on Nov. 21.

Florida A&M caused some of those turnovers with full-court pressure that Payne said made his players "hesitant."

"It's supposed to be the easiest thing that you face is when a team is pressing," Payne said. "You can just get into the middle, attack it and go have fun playing basketball. But our guys want the game to be easy. They want it to be 'Let's run a set, let's not face people running at us, jumping at us, trapping us.' That's a problem that we got to fix."

Key quote

Louisville forward Brandon Huntley-Hatfield on winning two straight games after starting 0-9:

"These past (two) games have been good for us, to get these W's for our team and for us to feel good as a team. But we still have a lot of improvement. So we're gonna go back to practice and look at the film and just how to correct those mistakes and try to go on a winning streak."

Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brett Dawson at mdawson@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter at @BDawsonWrites.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville basketball beats Florida A&M for second straight win