Arkansas State coach John Brady identified one positive Tuesday night: The Red Wolves never quit trying.
Brandon Peterson had six points and 10 rebounds and Arkansas State lost 54-27 against No. 7 Louisville in the lowest-scoring game for the Red Wolves since the shot clock was implemented in 1986.
''The thing we did do really well is play 40 minutes hard defensively and try to rebound. If you get effort and if we can clean it offensively, we might have an opportunity,'' Brady said. ''I'm not going to get too down about this. Now, if my team would have rolled over and quit then we've got another issue. We're OK mentally.''
Kyle Kuric scored 12 points and Gorgui Dieng added 10 points and seven rebounds for the Cardinals (4-0) as they continue to deal with a swath of injuries, including one to starting point guard Peyton Siva. Arkansas State (1-4) committed 22 turnovers for a second straight game and shot 24.4 percent from the field in their worst offensive output since a 24-23 win over Wisconsin-Green Bay in 1981-82.
''Offensively, we couldn't really knock down shots. We didn't really shoot a good percentage. But defensively, I mean the effort was there. We got stops, made them miss shots,'' said Red Wolves guard Trey Finn, who had five points. ''We did pretty good. All around, I think we did fine, we've just got to convert on the offense end and that's what we didn't do tonight.''
The Red Wolves scored the first five points of the game, but Louisville used a 16-0 first-half run to open a double-digit lead. The Cardinals slowly pulled away in the second half to win the opener of a 10-game homestand.
''(At) 5-0, I wish we could have called timeout and walked out of the building,'' Brady said.
Arkansas State scored the first five points and led 7-3 early before Louisville turned up the defensive pressure on a 16-0 run. The Red Wolves went nearly 9 1/2 minutes without a point, committing eight turnovers and missing seven shots in the ugly span before Rakeem Dickerson's jumper. After taking just 2 minutes to score five points, the Red Wolves scored 11 over the next 29 minutes of play.
Meanwhile, Louisville made it a point to get to the rim.
Chris Smith completed an alley-oop to Kuric, then found Chane Behanan for another dunk. On another possession, Louisville grabbed two offensive rebounds before Behanan went up strong over two defenders to make it 19-7 and cap the spurt.
Late in the first half, the Cardinals went scoreless for 5 1/2 minutes, but Arkansas State only managed to whittle the lead down to 19-12 before Kuric's layup with 2:22 left ended the drought.
Arkansas State, picked to finish first in the Sun Belt Conference's West Division, came in averaging 18.8 turnovers and committed them in bunches early against the Cardinals. At the half, the Red Wolves had 16 turnovers and trailed 22-12.
''I've coached a long time, had all kinds of teams,'' said Brady, who took LSU to the Final Four in 2006. ''I don't think I've ever had a team so anemic offensively, and I give Louisville credit.''
