Louisville's David Padgett talks after the Cards beat Albany 70-68 Scott Utterback/Louisville Courier Journal
In the middle of his radio show Monday night, David Padgett laughed at the observation that he may not be as calm and collected as his reputation suggests. It's probably a product of becoming a head coach, he acknowledged, and living through some of Louisville's close shaves this season.
No shave was closer than Louisville's 70-68 win over Albany late Wednesday night. No win tested the patience of Louisville's interim coach more.
"That was a little stressful," Padgett quipped as he arrived in the press conference room.
The biggest source of stress? Louisville's unconvincing and uneven defensive rebounding. Watching Padgett on the sidelines Wednesday was like watching a man go through stages of grief: There was anger and bargaining and more anger. It was mostly anger, actually.
What's worse, it's not anything new for Louisville, and Padgett knows that. The Cards now have an 11-game sample size, and some aspects of this team are becoming more than just early-season blips or aberrations.
More: Louisville basketball wins fifth in a row, escapes Albany | Jeff Greer's takeaways
Especially this one: Louisville is not good at defensive rebounding.
Albany exposed that after Memphis exposed that after Indiana exposed that after Siena exposed that after Seton Hall exposed that — you get the picture.
And that picture is a bad one for Louisville considering the opponents left on the schedule.
On Ken Pomeroy's college basketball analytics site, you can sort teams by their offensive rebounding percentages, which show how many offensive boards teams grab among the rebounds available to them off their missed shots.
In the top 10 nationally in offensive rebounding percentage: Duke and Syracuse. Just outside the top 10: Kentucky, North Carolina, North Carolina State, Florida State, Boston College ... If those team names look familiar, it's probably because they will be Louisville's opponents in eight upcoming games.
Albany, Memphis and Seton Hall each rank in the top 20 of those same ratings. Indiana is in the top 50, and Siena in the top 65.
So, on the one hand, it's fair to acknowledge that while Louisville struggles with defensive rebounding, it has also faced opponents that are very good at it.
It's also fair to say Louisville has a major flaw that undercuts good field-goal defense and elite shot-blocking.
To Padgett, the solution is more effort.
"It's everybody, honestly," Padgett said. "We just can't rely on Ray Spalding or Anas Mahmoud or those two guys to get all the rebounds. It's got to come from everybody, because the way we play defense, we force a lot of teams to take long shots, and long shots mean long rebounds. ... It's got to be a mindset of the five guys on the court saying, 'I'm going to go get the ball.'"
More: Louisville gets past Albany 70-68
He later added, "I told the guys there's no magical drill or anything like that that we can do. It's just the mindset of the guys to go pursue the ball and be aggressive about doing it."
Mahmoud, a senior tri-captain, agreed with Padgett.
But the 7-footer, who has shouldered some blame for defensive rebounding lapses, along with the 6-foot-10 Spalding, also thinks Louisville's guards make the assumption the rebounds will be grabbed by the big guys.
"For the most part, (Ray and I) down low try to rebound," Mahmoud said, "but our guards usually run out and try to get fast-break points. It's a good thing but it can be a bad thing, too. Sometimes we don't secure a rebound before they take off. We try so hard to protect the paint and make our opponents shoot a lot of 3s. And the ball always bounces out to our free-throw area, behind our backs, and our guards have to help us and understand they have to get in and get the rebound."
The frustration was clear against Albany, which missed 47 shots and was just 6 of 20 from 3-point range. Louisville forced multiple shot-clock violations and contested a bunch of shots. The defensive rotations were often crisp.
That's why it was so deflating when Albany came up with 21 of the 51 available rebounds on Louisville's defensive glass.
"You get them to miss shots," Padgett said. "The problem is, we just didn't get the misses."
Padgett said he was concerned about it. And he should be.
It won't just cause him more stress as the season progresses — it will cost the Cards a few games, too.
Jeff Greer: 502-582-4044; [email protected]; Twitter: @JeffGreer_CJ. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/jeffg.