LOUISVILLE, Ky .— This is what joy, deliverance, relief — maybe all of the above — looked like in Louisville Tuesday night.
It is nearly an hour after the Cardinals have put away Kentucky 96-88, easing considerable local anguish about the Wildcat waltz this rivalry had become lately. Louisville coach Pat Kelsey is discussing his emotions. “This is one of those rare games where I haven’t even peeked at the stat sheet. There’s an absolute zoo and chaos going on in there for about the last 45 minutes or so,” he says of his locker room.
There are already videos leaking out of his victory dance in the locker room. Kelsey nearly visibly grimaces. “I constantly embarrass my kids. My daughters are going to be appalled.” But then it is the night to let loose. Why not? “We celebrated when we beat South Carolina State. We work really stinking hard. Every team around the country does. But the demands we put on our guys, the expectations, the standards we hold them to…you’ve got to enjoy the wins. You just have to. You can’t be relieved that you didn’t lose. You have to enjoy the wins.”
“To be honest with you, that one was a little bit better and bigger than most of them.”
Sure. But what about that finger split on his right hand?
Oh…that.
Well, in the excitement after the game he was running through a curtain in the practice gym as his staff tried to mob him, and his finger got caught on something and the next thing he knew, he looked down and it was bent 90 degrees. Dislocated. A team doctor had to pop it back into place. “There was so much adrenaline going on in my body right now,” Kelsey says, “I didn’t feel anything when Doc was pulling that thing, I’ll tell you that.”
ANDY KATZ’S RANKINGS: Alabama, Arizona rise in Power 37 men’s basketball rankings
To understand such elation we must know the Louisville frustration after losing to its Bluegrass buddies three times in a row and 14 of the past 17. It has been a long ordeal of Kentucky domination. The Cardinals’ three wins were narrow escapes by three points each. The Wildcats’ 14 victories were by an average of 16.7.
“You walk down the street, go to class and they’re telling us, ‘Beat UK. Beat UK, that’s all we care about,’ ” guard Mikel Brown Jr. said. He’s a freshman, so can he grasp that he is a new civic hero, now that he has scored 29 points against Kentucky?
Kelsey had squarely faced the Kentucky issue last season after another Cardinals loss, saying plainly that if the rivalry was to stay vibrant, Louisville had to start doing its part. “I said that because I meant it,” he reflects Tuesday night. “Maybe it put a little bit more pressure on us, I don’t know.”
What he did know, what everybody knew, is that Louisville badly needed a moment like this. Consider Tuesday night in KFC Yum! Center. Imagine a thunderous arena with wall-to-wall red. Red lights, thousands of red seats, with 22,586 mostly red-clad fans sitting in them. Red free throw lanes, red banners overhead. And in the middle of it all, just one little huddle of blue.
The heat of the occasion was palpable, but the Cardinals played as if they were sure their time had come. It took 17 minutes for them to make a turnover, and there would be only six all night. They had an 18-point lead sliced to five in the first half, then a 20-point gap melt to four in the second. They stood fast both times — except for missing seven of their last eight free throws, but their defense and rebounding at the other end kept them safe.
A backcourt of newcomers would lead the way. Brown toasted the Wildcats with his 29 points and five assists. Ryan Conwell, a transfer from Xavier, added 24 points. The two of them made 18 free throws, six more than the entire Wildcat team. That was a combined 53 points from a guard combo who had never faced Kentucky in a Louisville uniform.
MARQUEE MATCHUPS: 10 men’s basketball games to watch this week, according to Andy Katz
“I think the key to that is removing yourself and removing your team from results,” Kelsey said of his team’s steady approach. “That’s what we try to do all the time. Fans are supposed to do that. Media is supposed to do that. You want to talk about outcomes all the time. It’s boring coach-speak, but it’s just being present…just understanding that when that ball goes up it’s just a basketball game. We harp on that every day.”
Actually, both sides of this series have been yearning for a return to the good ol’ days. Times have not been all that grand. This was the first time in six years both were ranked for their meeting: Kentucky at No. 9 and Louisville at No. 12. Neither program has seen a Final Four in 10 years, the longest dry spell for the Commonwealth couple in history. The longest previous drought was seven years, with 27 appearances between them. Louisville hasn’t even won an NCAA tournament game since 2017.
But Wildcats coach Mark Pope has Kentucky on the move — the Wildcats were in the Sweet 16 last March — and Kelsey took a Louisville program that had crumbled to 12-52 the previous two seasons, applied some quick CPR, and revived it to 27-8 his first year. But he didn’t beat Kentucky. “It is a house divided, obviously,” he said then of the rivalry. “They reminded me, early and often, every single day, every time I get gas, every time I get something to eat in the community: ‘Hey coach, how you doing? Are you going to beat Kentucky this year?’ “
Now he has, and it was as if the entire Louisville-speaking world rose to cheer Tuesday night. Not to mention exhale. A dislocated finger seemed a small price to pay.
