Louisville basketball reclaims its rivalry footing with win over Kentucky
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Louisville basketball won its first game over Kentucky since 2020.
- Guards Mikel Brown Jr. and Ryan Conwell led the Cardinals in the rivalry win.
- Coach Pat Kelsey’s Cardinals are one of the favorites to win the ACC this season.
READ MORE
Gameday: No. 12 Louisville 96, No. 9 Kentucky 88
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday’s Kentucky-Louisville men’s basketball game at the KFC Yum Center in Louisville.
Expand All
A red-tinged revival in the Kentucky versus Louisville rivalry series was completed Tuesday night, as U of L topped UK in a 96-88 barn burner between two top-15 teams inside a jumping KFC Yum Center in Louisville.
The moments that crystallized this were plentiful.
Star freshman guard Mikel Brown Jr. dropping a game-high 29 points and five assists, knifing through a porous UK defense with apparent ease. The Cardinals’ breakneck offense torching the Wildcats at a nearly 1.3 points per possession clip and launching 40 3-pointers in the game. U of L’s defense hounding Mark Pope’s team into 14 turnovers, which led directly to 19 Louisville points.
But it was the celebration of second-year Cards head coach Pat Kelsey that will prove to be the lasting image of the night. After the postgame handshake line was complete, Kelsey launched himself into the Cardinals’ student section.
Kelsey ducked beneath a rope that prevented the Louisville students from storming the court. He scurried up the stairs, pointing in all directions and making the heart symbol with his hands. It was an outpouring of emotion from a coach who has revitalized a recently dormant program.
And it didn’t end when the Cardinals left the court.
The behind-the-scenes celebrations from Louisville included Kelsey dislocating a finger as he was chased around the team’s practice gym by his assistants and NBA star Donovan Mitchell, a former Louisville great, stopping by the team’s locker room.
“There’s an absolute zoo and chaos going on for the last 45 minutes or so,” Kelsey said.
To cut to the chase, Louisville basketball is back. Before a crowd of 22,586 fans at the Yum Center — the biggest men’s basketball crowd at the venue in nine seasons — Louisville notched its first win over Kentucky since 2020.
Not only do the Cardinals now have a foothold against their most-hated opponent, but Kelsey’s team also sent a statement of intent as a national title contender.
“I want to commend Coach Pope and his team and the program he’s building there. I firmly believe that his team is a national title contender,” Kelsey said. “And I believe that to be the case for our team as well.”
Mikel Brown Jr. leads Louisville to rivalry win over Kentucky
Afterward, Kelsey said he hadn’t even looked at the final stats from the game. When he does dive into the numbers, it will make for happy reading.
U of L only turned it over six times. Louisville only lost the rebounding battle to Kentucky by two, and the points in the paint battle by four, a win against a UK team that was expected to have a clear frontcourt advantage.
In the backcourt, it was all Cardinals, as 82 of their 96 points came from guards, headlined by Brown (29 points) and senior Ryan Conwell (24), capitalizing on U of L’s perceived advantage at guard.
“We have good players. We have really good guards,” Kelsey said. “... Mikel was special... Ryan is a winner.”
The home team led for nearly 38 of the game’s 40 minutes. While Kentucky made things close at the end, Louisville enjoyed leads of as many as 18 points in the first half and 20 points in the second half, underscoring the Cardinals’ grip on the game.
Louisville can use win over Kentucky as launching pad for rest of season
This year’s meeting between the Cardinals and Wildcats occurred far earlier in the season than usual. The schools won’t face each other on the football field until Nov. 29.
But the early season nature of the game means that Kelsey can use Louisville’s decisive win as a true jumping off point for the rest of the campaign.
There’s the renewal of another rivalry series for U of L — at Cincinnati — in less than 10 days. The ACC/SEC Challenge sends Louisville to Arkansas in early December for a matchup against John Calipari (and former Louisville head coach Kenny Payne, a Razorbacks assistant). That’s part of a four-game nonconference stretch against power-conference opponents during which Louisville will also play Indiana, Memphis and Tennessee.
The Cardinals — real contenders to win their first ever regular-season ACC championship — begin conference play at California on Dec. 30.
So far this season, Louisville’s offense has flexed its muscles. Through three contests, the Cardinals are shooting 33.3% from 3-point range on 35 attempts per game.
Brown is now up to per-game averages of 19.3 points and 6.7 assists. That’s a major turnaround from the off night he had in a home exhibition loss to Kansas, and validation of the expectations Brown carried into the season as the No. 8 freshman recruit.
“I really don’t look into my stat line,” Brown said. “The biggest thing for me is coming out with the win. Whatever I’ve got to do to get that win, I’m going to do it.”
The backcourt depth around and behind Brown is also notable. Conwell, Virginia transfer Isaac McKneely and former Kennesaw State star Adrian Wooley were Kelsey’s major transfer portal additions. Add in big men Sananda Fru (a former professional player in Germany), Aly Khalifa (who played for Mark Pope at BYU) and Kasean Pryor (who recently returned from a torn ACL), and it’s hard not to see Final Four upside.
But that’s a debate that can be settled down the road. Louisville has earned its long-awaited moment against the Cats. Nobody who watched Tuesday’s game, or the celebration afterward, could say otherwise.
“We knew how important this game was, especially for our fan base,” Brown said. “We walk down the street, go to class. And they’re telling us ‘Beat UK. Beat UK. That’s all we care about.’ To be able to get the job done for them means a lot to us.”
