Louisville 'Disappointed' in Performance vs. Tennessee, Eager to Bounce Back

The Cardinals faced their first true test of the Pat Kelsey era, and were dealt a 22-point loss by the Volunteers.

Nov 9, 2024; Louisville, Kentucky, USA; Louisville Cardinals guard J'Vonne Hadley (1) controls the ball as Tennessee Volunteers guard Cameron Carr (43) defends during the first half at KFC Yum! Center. Tennessee defeated Louisville 77-55. / Jamie Rhodes-Imagn Images

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Leading up to the official start of the Pat Kelsey era, the Louisville men's basketball program showed fans some early signs of promise for year one under their new head coach.

They blitzed past their two opponents in their summer foreign tour in The Bahamas, using primarily an up-tempo and unselfish brand of offense to do so. During exhibition play, the Cardinals used a heavy dose of threes to win one game, then a stifling defensive outing to win the next. While their season opener against Morehead State wasn't super efficient, they still were able to cruise to 48-point win.

This buildup over the last few weeks and months set up a really big opportunity for Louisville against Tennessee, who was ranked as the No. 12 team in the country. A win over the Volunteers would have been a massive early season statement, as well as a huge step forward towards regaining national relevance.

Unfortunately, Louisville's chance to make a statement will have to come another time. The Cards' outing against the Vols was nothing short of a humbling experience, suffering a 77-55 defeat on their home floor on Saturday.

"Obviously extremely disappointed, [the KFC] Yum! Center was electric, we asked people to come out, they came out big," head coach Pat Kelsey said after the game. "It was as elite of a college basketball atmosphere as you’re going to find anywhere. The fact of the matter is, they were the better team tonight. [Tennessee] punched us in the mouth from the very beginning. The only way to describe it is they beat us in almost every single facet of the game."

Defensive toughness and tenacity has been a hallmark of Rick Barnes-led teams during his time at Tennessee, and this was something that Louisville struggled to deal with.

The Vols routinely forced the Cardinals to settle for three-pointers, with 39 of their 60 total field goal attempts coming from behind the arc. Add in some big game jitters by Louisville, and they shot just 26.7 percent for the game and 25.6 percent from deep. They also struggled to nab rebounds off of their misses thanks in part to UT's toughness and length, getting out-rebounded 40-to-26.

“Yeah [the offense] stunk, it stunk," Kelsey said. "Again, you have to give credit to Tennessee, they’re a very, very sound defensive team. They're extremely physical, and [Tennessee] didn’t allow us to get into a rhythm. [Tennessee] blew up dribble handoffs, they were very aggressive on ball screens, [Tennessee] just muddied up the game, and it forced us to play without the normal flow.

"I thought early on we were settling for just okay instead of trying to hunt great, as we say on the offensive end. We talked about playing on the attack, getting downhill, touching the paint, putting foul pressure on them. I felt like we were playing around the perimeter a little bit too much in the first half. Our set play execution was porous, our flow, or kind of the play after the play wasn’t good enough. Our special team's execution on baseline out-of-bounds was sub-par, I mean I could go on and on."

Louisville's defense didn't fair much better. Whenever they weren't turning the ball over, whether it was in the paint or beyond the arc, Tennessee had their way. The Volunteers collected 40 points in the paint, and were a blazing 52.6 percent (10-of-19) on three-pointers. Put it all together, and UT shot 56.6 percent for the game despite coughing the ball up 20 times.

“On the defensive end, Everything, Everything," Kelsey said when asked what went wrong with the defensive execution. "Start with guarding the ball, high-end closeouts, ball screen execution, transition defense, not allowing second shots hitting, attacking the ball. I mean, again, I have to watch the tape. But the answer is everything, and it will be addressed, maybe better because of this."

Of course, getting beat by 20-plus on your own floor is never a net-positive experience. Louisville fans know this first hand after it happened on multiple occasions under previous head coach Kenny Payne.

But if there is any silver lining to what happened on Saturday afternoon, it's that Louisville has plenty of time to fix what went wrong. After all, it's just game two of a 31-game regular season, and the Cardinals won't be back in action until Nov. 19 against Bellarmine.

“As I sit here looking at you guys and looking at a box scores where we just got our stinking butts kicked, and it hurts like crazy. No question, we needed that today. Josh (Heird), we were walking in talking about, he’s like ‘Man that’s a tough second game, I know I pushed for that.’, I said thank you. Thank you, that is exactly what this team needed, because the things that nailed is today were exposed today by Tennessee, and now we are going to get the chance to fix it.

"When you’re playing a game in the Bahamas, whether you're playing our two exhibition games, or you’re playing Morehead, a new team with a new coach, and all those things. We didn’t get exposed the way we did today. I will embrace this butt-kicking. I have had my butt kicked before, and I’ll probably have my butt kicked again. We’ve done a little butt-kicking as well. But you know the response, and what you learn from getting your tail kicked, is the mark of a really, really good team."

Additionally, the players are just as motivated to get back on the correct course as the coaches are. Immediately after the game, instead of hanging their head, they stuck together in the locker room, and vowed to bounce back.

"A lot of it is just handling adversity," guard Reyne Smith said. "From June to now, we haven’t really been punched in the mouth like we were tonight. I think how we handle that going forward and going into practice on Monday is the next thing we need to focus on and just get better. What happened today happened, and there’s nothing we can do but learn from it. I think this group of guys is still really positive and confident that we’re going to be really good, and we are really good. It’s just a learning curve. Just handling this adversity is going to be a true test of character.”

“Tennessee is a very good team, and that’s what we wanted," guard Chucky Hepburn added. "We wanted to play a very good team to start the season off to see where we’re at and what we’ve got to get better at. I feel like the offense was very stagnant today, and that’s what we’re got to get better at. We’ve got to be able to move the ball a lot quicker and get stops when we need them. They hit a couple of big shots, and for us, that’s getting stops when we need to. At the end of the shot clock, when we’re tapping our heads, we've got to be able to come out with those types of stops to get momentum.”

(Photo of J'Vonne Hadley: Jamie Rhodes - Imagn Images)

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