92 - 69 
The Cards have now lost five straight for the first time in 22 years.
Photo by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Louisville fans garnered some optimism from the way the team played in competitive losses to Duke and North Carolina in their first two outings after parting ways with head coach Chris Mack.
That optimism will be much more difficult to glean following an embarrassing 92-69 loss at Syracuse Saturday afternoon.
The loss, which dropped the Cards below .500 for the season at 11-12, marks the first five-game losing streak for a U of L team since 2000. Louisville hasn’t lost six consecutive games in a season since 1991.
There’s really not a whole lot to say here. Louisville didn’t have anywhere near the juice it had in its last two outings, and as a result, it simply allowed a very talented offensive team to take a host of uncontested shots from the outside and an equally incomprehensible number of uncontested shots right around the rim.
The Cards tried to keep pace with the Orange by hoisting a ton of shots from the outside against Jim Boeheim’s vaunted 2-3 zone. As anyone who has watched this team for the last three months could have predicted, U of L did not keep pace.
This would have been a brutal two-hour viewing experience under any circumstances, but it was especially disappointing after watching how hard this group competed in its first two games (back) under Mike Pegues.
Here’s hoping the guys find a way to regroup after this one, because right now you’ve got a very large contingent of Louisville fans who are simply counting down the days until the get to flip the page to the next era of Cardinal hoops.
