How Early Adversity Helped Pat Kelsey Get Louisville on Track
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - As it currently stands, the buzz and hype surrounding the Louisville men's basketball program is at a point that we haven't seen in years.
Roughly halfway through the first season under new head coach Pat Kelsey, the Cardinals are riding a six-game winning streak, and are currently 12-5 overall and 5-1 in the ACC. Not only has Kelsey matched the win total of his predecessor, Kenny Payne, in 47 fewer games, he has UofL on their longest win streak in five year and tied for second place in the ACC.
Following the tumultuous end of the Chris Mack era and a disastrous two-year stint under Payne, Louisville fans are starting to buy into Kelsey's "ReviVille" en masse. Despite playing their previous home game vs. Clemson last Tuesday with the city of Louisville buried underneath nearly a foot of snow and ice, 14,991 fans showed up to watch a 74-64 victory.
Kelsey knew that Louisville fans were a passionate group when he accepted the job last March. Over the last few weeks, it's been hard to ignore the bubbling positive energy emitting from the Cardinal faithful.
"It's awesome to feel that momentum," he said Monday. "You feel the excitement around the city and within our fan base, the energy in our building. You can definitely feel it. I'm not saying we're numb to that and we don't pay attention to that, it's awesome. It's it's what we set out to do from the very beginning: to inject energy back into the city and into the program. It seems to be doing that, and we're very happy for that, very proud of that."
On the heels of signing the top transfer portal class in college basketball (per On3), optimism for year one success amongst both the program and fanbase was at a cautiously optimistic level. But it didn't take long for Louisville to get hit with a swift reality check.
After Louisville easily dispatched Morehead State in their season opener, they got an early season test in the form of Tennessee - and were promptly humbled by the Vols. The Cardinals were out-muscled from the jump, and wound up suffering a 77-55 defeat on their home floor. As bad as a 22-point loss is, anyone that watched the game knows it could have been a lot worse.
"The Tennessee Volunteers absolutely, figuratively and literally, punched us in the mouth," Kelsey said. "It was like a baptism by fire as to how it is at this level. It was eye opening. I walked out, and I said, 'Okay, got it.' I'm not the smartest knife in the drawer, but like you punch me in the mouth, and I realize what we're dealing with and what we're up against here."
Adding injury to insult, after that is when the injury bug started to bite. Between the game vs. Tennessee and their next game against Bellarmine, Aboubacar Traore, who started the first two games, suffered a broken left arm in practice and would have to miss the next six week. Additionally, reserve guard Koren Johnson would be sidelined for the next several games due to a lingering shoulder injury, and eventually announced he would have to have season-ending surgery.
Even being short two players to a roster that was already redshirting two scholarship players (Aly Khalifa and Kobe Rodgers), Louisville was able to bounce back. They won their next four games following the UT loss, including huge victories against Indiana and West Virginia in the Battle 4 Atlantis. Momentum was back in their favor.
But then in the Battle 4 Atlantis title game against Oklahoma, Louisville was dealt a crushing blow. Starting forward Kasean Pryor, arguably the best player on the roster, suffered a torn ACL early in the second half. The Cardinals eventually fell to the Sooners, 69-64.
With the season-ending losses of Pryor and Johnson plus the extended loss of Traore, this meant that for a time, Louisville had just eight healthy scholarship players at their disposal - and the effects were immediately felt. The Oklahoma game was the first game of a stretch where Louisville lost four of five to fall to 6-5. This included a blowout 86-63 loss to Ole Miss at home, and another loss to Kentucky - this time a 93-85 decision at Rupp Arena.
As steadfast in his system that Kelsey way, the unavoidable truth was that, simply because of the lack of depth, he had to make changes moving forward if the Cardinals were to salvage their season and make a run towards getting back to the NCAA Tournament.
And that's exactly what he did.
"We had to pick and choose our spots on certain things," he said. "Whether it's picking up full court pressure defensive-wise, we probably don't do that as much anymore. Then just some some some adjustments and things like that to line ups and defensive stuff without Kasean Pryor, who's one of the more dominant players defensively, I think, in college basketball. We had to make some pick and roll adjustments, some rebounding adjustments, some transition defense adjustments, just to name a few."
There are some aspects that haven't changed. For instance, Louisville is still the No. 6 team in Division I college basketball in terms of three-point rate, with 51.5 percent of their total field goal attempts coming from beyond the arc. But because of the adjustments Kelsey and his staff had to make, we have seen a noticeable difference in the Cardinals' efficiency.
Over the first 11 games of the season, Louisville averaged 60.9 field goal attempts per game, and were struggling with three-point shots and rebounds, shooting just 28.0 percent from deep and hauling in 36.3 rebounds per game. They also were allowing their opponents to shoot 44.4 percent overall and 35.5 percent from deep.
During the Cardinals' six-game winning streak, they have eased up the pace some due to the short bench, averaging 59.5 field goal attempts per game. But because of the adjustments made, they have shot 34.9 percent on three-point attempts, and are averaging 38.8 rebounds over their last five games. Defensively, their opponents' shooting percentages have gone down as well, connected on 43.0 percent overall and 34.1 percent on threes.
Put it all together, and there's a clear jump in overall efficiency. During Louisville's 6-5 start, the analytical site BartTorvik pegged them as the No. 54 in D1 hoops with an efficiency rating of .8438. During their six-game winning streak, that efficiency rating has been .9299, which is good for the No. 22 team during that span.
As a result, not only is Louisville garnering NCAA Tournament buzz, they're slowly trending from bubble team to certified lock. According to BracketMatrix, of the 24 bracketologists to release an updated tournament projection by Jan. 10, all 24 of them have the Cardinals in the field. UofL averages out to a nine seed, but peaks as high as a seven seed.
Part of what has made Louisville so successful during their six game stretch is that they haven't relied solely on one person to guide them to victory. Kelsey has routinely preached the "power of the unit," and we have seen that first hand over the last few weeks.
Terrence Edwards Jr. was within striking distance of a triple-double vs. Florida State. Noah Waterman helped UofL avoid disaster with a go-ahead layup in the final seconds vs. Eastern Kentucky. In his first game back Traore has 15 points at Virginia for Louisville's first win in Charlottesville in 35 years. J'Vonne Hadley had a career-high 32-points against Clemson. Reyne Smith drained seven threes at Pitt.
While it was undoubtedly a challenge to get Louisville back on the right track given the injury situation, Kelsey embraced the challenge.
"One of the fun things to me about coaching is figuring it out," he said. "Everybody has to figure stuff out. Good things happen, bad things happen, it's helping your team get on to the next thing and respond the right way. Sometimes it's how you respond to success, which is what we're dealing with right now, then it's some adversity too. There's no question that we dealt with some really tough things, with injuries to some really key guys that made us kind of reinvent ourselves and go back to the drawing board a little bit.
"It took a little bit for it to get our footing back and to figure out our new way, but I really feel like our guys adapted well, and we have some good momentum going right now."
That being said, like Kelsey has preached all season, he and his program are not getting caught up in big picture storylines or their recent success. To them, the most important thing to concentrate on is their upcoming matchup at Syracuse on Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. EST.
"That's kind of been coming to fruition, because our guys haven't been caught up in a win streak, or what happened yesterday or what happened the last week. It's about the next thing," he said, "That doesn't guarantee elite results, that doesn't guarantee that we're going to win tomorrow (vs. Syracuse), but that's just how we go about our stuff."
(Photo of Pat Kelsey: Jamie Rhodes - Imagn Images)
You can follow Louisville Cardinals On SI for future coverage by liking us on Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram:
Facebook - @LouisvilleOnSI
Twitter/X - @LouisvilleOnSI
Instagram - @louisvilleonsi
You can also follow Deputy Editor Matthew McGavic at @Matt_McGavic on Twitter/X and @mattmcgavic.bsky.social on Bluesky