Louisville's David Padgett after the Cards win their ACC season opener against Pitt Scott Utterback/Louisville Courier Journal
Ryan McMahon and Quentin Snider sat in their room on campus Friday night and talked.
The Louisville guards talked about their embarrassment after a 90-61 rout at the hands of archrival Kentucky earlier that day. They talked about what went wrong "and what went really wrong," McMahon said. They talked about how they, as veterans on the team, needed to be better leaders.
Then they resolved to help their team bounce back from the worst loss in the in-state rivalry since 1999.
"It was a long night," McMahon said, "but I'm just glad we came out (Tuesday) and played a lot better."
Tuesday was when Louisville blasted Pittsburgh, 77-51, to begin Atlantic Coast Conference play. Tuesday was also when Louisville (11-3, 1-0 ACC) played its most complete game of the season in what had unexpectedly become its most important game of the season, at least from an emotional standpoint.
No, Pittsburgh is not very good. The Panthers were picked to finish last in the ACC before the season started.
But Louisville needed to thump Pittsburgh. It had to. After all the postgame comments in the Cards' locker room about lack of energy, lack of enthusiasm, lack of focus, lack of preparation, Louisville had to play with confidence and urgency and blow out Pittsburgh. And it did.
"It was good to see them respond that way," interim Louisville coach David Padgett said. "You can never predict how a game's going to go, but I would have been surprised if we didn't come out with a little bit of an edge (Tuesday), just based on how the last three days have been."
The last three days, Padgett explained, were "very intense."
Deng Adel, a junior tri-captain, said the practice schedule changed, with the coaches calling for more ferocity in workouts.
"It was a lot more competitive, going up and down more, just getting our pace back and going back to playing Louisville basketball," Adel said. " ... We got better as a group."
Adel's fellow wing, sophomore V.J. King, said words behind closed doors provided a spark, too.
"We can't sit around and hang our heads and feel sorry for ourselves," King said. "We got in the gym and we practiced."
For a team that has had to do a lot of soul-searching over the past few months, it was a pivotal few days.
After the game: Louisville basketball bounces back with rout of Pittsburgh in ACC opener
Padgett and King both declined to share what the coaches and players said to each other in those meetings and interactions, but the implication was that it was serious, stern conversation that players took to heart.
Senior center Anas Mahmoud, who fouled out without making an impact on Friday's game, went to the gym for a workout after returning home from Lexington. He said he was angry with himself and confused by his team's performance.
Adel, like McMahon, said he was embarrassed and frustrated.
They all, however, repeated the same mantra: Life goes on; the season continues; and there are plenty of opportunities going forward to use the Kentucky game as a reminder of what happens when things go wrong.
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"We got outplayed in every aspect of the game (at Kentucky) and it was embarrassing," McMahon said. "We can leave that taste in our mouth and use that as motivation for the rest of the year, but we can't let it affect us negatively. It happened, so let's just move on and let's try to learn from it as best we can and start ACC play."
That's what the Cards did against Pittsburgh. It was a therapeutic win.
Now the hard part really begins: No. 25 Clemson, hungry to continue its best start since the 2008-09 season, hosts Louisville on Saturday. Then Florida State, ranked 24th in the Associated Press poll, welcomes the Cards to Tallahassee next Wednesday.
"We started the right way," Padgett said, "but unfortunately, in this league, you can't enjoy the wins for more than about a half an hour because you've got to get ready for the next one, which is usually going to be harder."
Jeff Greer: 502-582-4044; [email protected]; Twitter: @JeffGreer_CJ. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/jeffg.