J'Vonne Hadley Has 'Sensational' Career Outing in Louisville's Win Over Clemson

The guard set a career-high in scoring against the Tigers.

Jan 7, 2025; Louisville, Kentucky, USA; Louisville Cardinals guard J'Vonne Hadley (1) drives to the basket against Clemson Tigers forward Ian Schieffelin (4) during the second half at KFC Yum! Center. Louisville defeated Clemson 74-64. / Jamie Rhodes-Imagn Images

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - In basketball, it's hard to win a game against any opponent whenever your three leading scorers are all having off night. For the Louisville men's basketball program, that was the situation they found themselves on Tuesday night against Clemson.

Against Clemson, Chucky Hepburn, Terrence Edwards Jr. and Reyne Smith collectively shot 4-of-28 from the field and 3-of-20 on three-point attempts for just 17 points. Doing this against an extremely physical team such as the Tigers, who also entered the matchup against Louisville with a 12-3 overall record, you'd think that would be more than enough to hand them a blowout loss.

Instead, UofL wound up winning 74-64 in a game where they led by as much as 14 in the final minutes. This was primarily because of a Herculean effort from guard J'Vonne Hadley.

Playing all but four minutes, the 6-foot-6, 215-pound guard/forward exploded for 32 points on 10-of-12 shooting and 9-of-11 at the free throw line. Not only did this break his scoring career-high, which was previously 24 against Washington while he was at Colorado, it's the most points by an ACC player in a conference game this season.

"He was sensational," head coach Pat Kelsey said of Hadley after the game. "What is crazy is that is not even his calling card. He is a jack of all trades, and in so many ways he was dominant tonight, on the backboard and scoring the ball.

Hadley certainly impacted that game beyond scoring. Already the team's leading rebounder, he hauled in 10 boards to secure a double-double, while also collecting four assists - second to Hepburn's seven for the game - and a steal.

Early on, it was clear that Hadley was in for a special night. In the first half alone, he scored 18 points and connected on his first six shot attempts of the game - two of which were threes. After it was clear early on that Hadley was the one with the hot hand that evening, his teammates, instead of trying to get right themselves, started to feed the ball and run the offense through him.

"My teammates were trying to give me the ball, but I was trying to make the right plays," Hadley said after the game. "Honestly, just trying to do what’s right for the team to win. Like I said, it could be anybody’s night. We have a really talented team. I would just say that I feel like I hit my second three or something like that. That’s when I started feeling hot, feeling good. I just tried to make the right plays.”

Thanks to his efforts, Louisville's lead didn't fall to single digits in the final 5:17 of the contest. In fact, in the game's final minutes with the result well in hand, the 14,991 in attendance at the KFC Yum! Center began to chant "Hadley! Hadley!" as he approached the free throw line. For him, that was an "indescribable" feeling.

"Honestly, I’ve been trying to describe it for a while since the game ended. It’s indescribable," he said. "Shout out to the fans for always just being themselves, always coming out and showing love. Even when we had a little though streak when guys went down, stuff like that. The fans still come out and show love, show support. And that’s just something we want to take advantage of, for sure.”

If you ask Kelsey, Hadley's career night was just one example of how Louisville can attack teams. While the Colorado transfer certainly gets the bulk of the credit, he made sure to credit the various contributions from other players that night.

"We can hurt you in a lot of ways. The contributions were there from other guys, too. I thought Khani’s (Rooths) three was huge at a point in the game where we were reeling a little bit. He stepped up and knocked that down. I thought Kader (Traore) gave us great energy off the bench. James Scott is Inspector Gadget with his go-go arms. I don’t know if anyone in this day and age know who Inspector Gadget is. He plays so hard. He had a double-double tonight and had a big steal at the end of the game.

"I could go down the roster and name a bunch of great guys. That is what makes our team good – the power of the unit.”

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

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