The “whispers” hadn’t been whispers for a while. Anyone within earshot has been easily able to hear the conversation.
Dan McDonnell has lost it.
Once seemingly the most untouchable coach on Floyd Street, McDonnell’s inability to live up to the previously unthinkable standard he set for the Louisville baseball program has had folks referencing the need for an “uncomfortable conversation” off and on for the past four years.
If you’re reading this, you likely know the backstory here.
Put simply, Cardinal baseball hasn’t seemed like itself ever since McDonnell’s 2020 squad, perhaps the most complete team he’s ever fielded, was prevented from having the opportunity to capture the program’s first national championship.
Unrest after a 28-22 season in 2021 was tempered by a bounce-back season in 2022 that saw U of L host and win a regional. Missing the NCAA Tournament in both 2023 and 2024 opened the door for questions about the program’s ability to continue to compete at the highest level in the era of NIL and the transfer portal.
Which brings us to this year.
An optimist would quickly point out that the 2025 Louisville baseball team has shown repeatedly that it can beat any team in the country. Someone less romantic might describe the squad as infuriatingly bipolar. Before this past weekend, both sides could agree on one thing: The Cards were limping into the postseason.
After entering the month of May with a strong chance at earning a top 16 seed and hosting an NCAA Tournament regional, Louisville bottomed out. They lost each of their last three conference series, finished 10th in the final ACC standings, went one-and-done in the league tournament, and entered the Big Dance having lost six of their last seven and 10 of their last 14. Pitching and defense were pointed to as the main culprits, with injuries playing a minor role.
Faith in the likelihood of seeing Cardinal baseball beyond the final weekend of May was at an all-time low, and understandably so.
What we just witnessed in Nashville was one of the more beautifully bizarre turn of events that I can remember a U of L team from any sport pulling off. Not because the Cards won three games against three different opponents over three days, but because of the way in which those victories came about.
If you had told a Louisville fan going into the weekend, that the Cards were going to leave the regional hosted by the No. 1 team in the sport with a championship, my guess is that most would have assumed the route included three or four slugfest victories from McDonnell’s team.
In its final five games leading into the NCAA Tournament, Louisville allowed its opponents to score an average of 10.2 runs per game. After finishing dead last in the ACC In virtually every pitching category in 2024, the Cards were 12th in team ERA (5.48) this season, and walked a whopping 316 batters, easily the most of any team in the conference.
While the fan conversations around McDonnell have been layered, the talk surrounding longtime pitching coach Roger Williams has been less nuanced. Frustrated U of L supporters (your narrator’s hand is up) looking for a head on a spike have had their eyes set on one man for multiple years now.
The bloodlust won’t be quenched for at least another week.
In three games against three talented offenses, Louisville’s pitching was spectacular. Over 27 innings, Cardinal hurlers allowed just 10 hits and four earned runs, while striking out a whopping 43 opposing hitters. Perhaps most importantly, U of L pitching walked just nine batters. In the ACC Tournament loss to Pitt alone, the Cards walked 13 batters and hit two more.
The Cardinal offense, meanwhile, was solid, but not its full explosive self. U of L used a combination of the long ball and a handful of big situational hits to post a total of 17 runs in three games. A handful of egregious base-running errors and some uncharacteristically poor hitting with runners in scoring position kept that total from being much higher.
And that’s the thing about Louisville’s performance in Nashville: It was enough to beat three really quality baseball teams — including the pre-tournament favorite to win the national championship — and it still could have been much better.
Vandy’s only two runs against the Cards were unearned, the first coming off back-to-back wild pitches and the second coming off back-to-back fielding errors. The previously mentioned baserunning blunders and poor situational hitting kept all three games tighter than they probably had any business being.
All of this says what fans who have followed this team closely have known since February: Louisville’s best can beat any team in the country.
So how do you coalesce the previous statement with the way this team played down the stretch? While it’s not a complete explanation, perhaps the injuries were more of a valid excuse than anyone wanted to believe.
Louisville’s Friday and Saturday starting pitchers — Patrick Forbes and Tucker Biven — were both brilliant after missing time throughout May because of injuries. Also helping the pitching was the return of star catcher Matt Klein, who had been sidelined since March 22 because of a hand injury. Klein hit home runs in each of the first two games of the regional for good measure. And while his thumb injury hasn’t fully healed, the return of starting shortstop Alex Alicea was a godsend for both defensive and offensive reasons.
In recent weeks, people have made all sorts of comparisons when it comes to McDonnell’s career trajectory. There have been Denny Crum comparisons, John Calipari comparisons, Mark Stoops comparisons, and on and on. While I understand the sentiment behind them, respectfully, I think they all fall flat. Two of those guys didn’t inherit a situation at all comparable to what McDonnell did, and the other has never taken his program to anywhere near the heights McDonnell has.
Louisville is headed to a Super Regional for the 10th time in McDonnell’s 19 seasons at the helm.
And now for your annual reminder: When McDonnell took over in 2007, the program had appeared in a grand total of one NCAA Tournament and won a grand total of zero NCAA Tournament games.
None of this is to say that the complaints over the last few weeks (or years) have been unjust. They haven’t been. It’s just a suggestion to save your final verdict for the moment after all the evidence has been provided.
There is a track record of pleasant surprising here, and this past weekend may have provided the most pleasantly surprising jolt yet.
A pitching staff that couldn’t throw strikes, let alone get anyone out, tossing three full-on gems in three days.
A team that hadn’t won a series away from home all season pulling off three wins in three days on the field of the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 overall seed.
A team that won just three total games from May 2 through the ACC Tournament winning three straight for the first time in over a month.
Taking everything into consideration, McDonnell’s 10th regional title at Louisville just might be his most satisfying yet.
The whispers will undeniably and perhaps justifiably return if U of L loses a pair of games this coming weekend, but for now, the silence is as sweet as it is deafening.