Earlier this week, Louisville was able to take control late in the second half against UMBC to win 94-93 to move to 1-0 on the season.

Their next test came tonight against Chattanooga, who’s also coming into the game 1-0 after a win over Covenant. Louisville had some rough stretches of basketball last Monday, but in the final minutes of the game they were able to make timely baskets that led to a victory. Tonight, on the other hand, was much different for the Cardinals. They played poorly for majority of the game and once they fell behind by double digits, the game was out of reach for them.

This is a terrible loss from a program that has an elite background and it might not get any better. Kenny Payne’s team has no identity right now, playing bad on both sides of the ball. The Cardinals play well in a couple of spurts, but outside of that, there’s no consistency on either end.

It won’t get any easier for this team, as they have Texas coming up in less than two weeks, and they’ll also play the loser between UConn and Indiana. It’s hard to tell if the players just not executing or if it’s a coaching issue, but this program is not what it once was. Losing here has never been tradition, but recently it’s been happening a lot more than usual. Some changes will have to consider being made in the future if they can’t show some real improvement from a season ago.

The Cardinals had a solid first half, but defense was still a major issue on why they had a six point deficit at halftime. Louisville has defended the three point line at a subpar level in each of their two games this season, giving up five threes in the first half to just one player in Honor Huff. He finished the night with seven total threes made and he came into tonight’s game with zero on the season.

Louisville also is struggling to box out on every possession, because they’ve allowed far too many offensive rebounds to teams that have less size than them. Chattanooga out-rebounded the Cardinals 41-40, because they out-hustled them for the entirety of the game. The rim protection from Louisville hasn’t be there either, so this defense doesn’t have anything to build off of right now. Dennis Evans is having a hard time adjusting to the physicality of college basketball and he’ll have to continue to put on weight to have more of an impact inside the paint. Brandon Huntley-Hatfield has rebounded the ball well to start the season, finishing with 14 boards tonight. He’ll have to get better on the offensive end to give Louisville some help, but he’s not the only one on the team who’s struggling to put the ball in the hoop.

Mike James has been the best player for Louisville so far, and he was fighting to keep the score close with some nice baskets in the first half. Still, Chattanooga was able to take a six point lead at the half.

The second half was a complete disaster from Kenny Payne and his team. The defense didn’t look any better, as the Mocs were still getting great looks on offense and they knocked many of those great looks down. The Cardinals had no answer on the other end, because the offense was stagnant and they couldn’t buy a basket.

Halfway into the second half, the Cardinals found themselves down by 20 with no signs of fight left in them. Chattanooga was cruising on the road at a place that used to be pretty hard to win at. The lead grew bigger and bigger, yet no timeout was called until Louisville was already down by 18 points.

With less than ten minutes to go, the Cardinals tried to mount a massive comeback backed behind some slightly improved defense and serviceable offense. They cut the deficit to just eight points with two minutes left, but the clock was too low and Chattanooga was able to hit free throws down the stretch to ice the game. During this run, this team looked like they had some continuity, something to build off of, but they have to play that good on a consistent basis.

Kenny Payne will have five days to make some adjustments to his game plan and his team will host another mid-major opponent Coppin State on Wednesday at 7:00 P.M. (ET).