For those of you who began following this site once the regular season started, throughout last summer we had a series of videos that showed the games of Al Durham and Justin Minaya after they signed with Providence. The intent was to get Friar fans familiar with the play of the incoming transfers by showing video of their previous stints at Indiana and South Carolina.
I plan on doing the same throughout this spring and summer with PC’s latest signees.
Here’s the disclaimer I’ll add to each of these articles throughout the offseason: These videos are not meant to be purely highlights. They will certainly highlight what each of these players does well, but I will try to include every possession I watch to balance the excitement of a signing, while setting realistic expectations.
In other words, you’ll see the good, bad, and everything in-between.
Needless to say, the 2021-22 season didn’t go as planned for Noah Locke and the Louisville Cardinals. The Cards were hoping to win their first NCAA Tournament game since 2017, but would have to do so in a year in which they welcomed eight newcomers and survived a six-game suspension of head coach Chris Mack.
Mack was eventually fired in January — quite a fall for a coach who led the number one team in the country in December 2019.
One of those incoming transfers was Locke, who considered both Providence and Xavier (with then-head coach Chris Mack) coming out of high school before committing to Florida. Locke played three seasons at Florida, started a majority of his games in each of those years, and shot over 40% from distance during that time.
Locke was the leading scorer on an offensively-deficient Louisville team, putting up just under ten points per game, while seeing his 3-point shooting percentage dip to 34%. Locke did knock down 68 shots from beyond the arc, upping his career total to a very impressive 285 made threes.
Louisville entered their first round ACC Tournament game against Georgia Tech with a 12-18 mark, and a 6-14 record in league play (they started the ACC 3-0 with wins over Wake Forest, Georgia Tech, and Pittsburgh). The bottom fell out in mid-January, as they dropped 11 of their final 12 regular season games.
Georgia Tech was the defending ACC Tournament champions, but they were in the midst of an equally-disappointing campaign (12-19 overall and 5-15 in the ACC heading into the postseason).
I wasn’t overly-excited to watch this game based on how each team closed out their respective seasons, but was intrigued by Locke’s strong overall output: 16 points, seven rebounds, and four assists.
It actually ended up being an interesting game to look back on, as Louisville raced out to a 27 point advantage mid-way through the second half before watching Tech cut the lead to to five with under three minutes to go — aided in large part by a 19-0 run.
Louisville’s Jarrod West hit a pair of deep threes in the final three minutes to help them hold off Georgia Tech, 84-74.
Locke had a lot of good looks in this one, finishing 6-16 from the field and 4-12 from deep in 37 minutes. The 6’3 guard doesn’t turn the ball over (in fact, he had zero in this game), but conversely doesn’t create much off the dribble. In fact, he took just ten shots at the rim last year and made two of them.
Still, with his outside shooting stroke, Locke must always be accounted for, and he can swing games by hitting shots in short order (as he did late in the first half against Tech by burying threes 30 seconds apart).
Locke could have had a terrific stat line had two of his shots from long distance not rimmed out in this one.
Louisville’s season would end the next day with a 51-50 loss to Virginia in which Locke shot 3-10 from the field and 2-7 from 3-point distance in 25 minutes. His final shot in a Louisville uniform was a 3-pointer to tie the game at 45 with 1:57 left in the game.
Video: Noah Locke Plays a Complete Game Against Georgia Tech in the ACC Tournament