Pat Kelsey Not Using Mounting Injuries as Excuse for Louisville's Losing Skid

The Cardinals, who are have lost three in a row, only have eight healthy scholarship players available.

Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey instructed his team against Duke during their game at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Ky. on Dec. 8, 2024. / Sam Upshaw Jr./Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - In any level of sports, whether that's high school, college or the professional ranks, injuries are an unfortunate inevitability. Some sports are more prone to injuries than others, but at some point, players and teams are bound to deal with them at some point.

But whether you call it bad luck or an unfortunate stroke of fate, there are some teams who deal with injuries at a much higher rate than expected. Just one month into their 2024-25 season, the Louisville men's basketball finds themselves squarely in that category.

The injury bug started biting just one week into the season. In between Louisville's games vs. Tennessee and Bellarmine, two players suffered significant injuries.

Starting forward Aboubacar "Kader" Traore sustained a broken left arm in practice, and is not slated to come back until early January. Additionally, a lingering shoulder issue began to bother backup point guard Koren Johnson, to the point where announced last week that he would need season-ending surgery.

Even with these two long term injuries, Louisville was able to have success in the interim. They took care of business at home against Bellarmine and Winthrop, then were able to earn two huge victories against No. 14 Indiana and West Virginia in the Battle for Atlantis.

Then, the injury bug decided to bite again - this time even harder.

In Louisville's Battle 4 Atlantis title game matchup with Oklahoma, starting forward Kasean Pryor, who was Louisville's second-leading scorer and leading rebounder at that point, torn his left ACL early in the second half. The Cardinals eventually fell to the Sooners, 69-64.

At that point, when taking into account the fact that Aly Khalifa and Kobe Rodgers are taking medical redshirts for their own injuries, this left Louisville with just eight healthy scholarship players. In their first game back stateside from the B4A, you could tell that the Cardinals were struggling to adapt to the mounting injuries, and were dealt an 86-63 loss by Ole Miss back on Dec. 3.

But on Sunday night, they seemed to take a massive step forward in figuring out how to play given their available roster pieces. Hosting preseason ACC favorite and top-ten Duke, Louisville came out swinging, exploding to a 30-16 lead just over 11 minutes into the game.

However, it became clear as the game went on that their lack of depth was not going to be able to hold up against a team like Duke, who has one of the deepest rosters in college basketball. The Blue Devils out-scored the Cardinals 60-35 the rest of the way, with the exclamation point being an 18-2 run midway through the second half. Louisville eventually succumbed to No. 9 Duke, 76-65.

Duke head coach Jon Scheyer said that wearing down Louisville in the second half in an attempt to exploit their depth was a big aspect of their game plan coming into the matchup.

"Part of our goal was just to wear on them," he said. "They've had a lot of injuries, and so they don't have the benefit of playing as deep as probably they would like to. That was a goal for us, and I thought down the stretch, we were physically more ready just because of the depth."

The lack of available players has certainly forced Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey to change the way he approaches games. For starters, he's had to dial back on the fast-paced tempo that he typically played with during his previous stops at Winthrop and Charleston. It was commonplace for him to give meaningful minutes to close to 10 players in game because of how fast they operated.

But against Duke, this was far from the case. In fact, only seven players saw the floor for Louisville, with four of them playing at least 30 minutes. Even in practice, Kelsey says they can't even play a traditional five-on-five simply because they don't have the bodies to do it.

While Louisville is having to play a fundamentally different game than what Pat Kelsey likes to run, he's not about to use the mounting injuries as an excuse for why the Cardinals now sit at a three-game losing streak.

"We are doing somethings to slow the game down," he said. "Probably running more set plays that we normally have in the past. We have to allow our guys to get a – I don’t want to say ‘rest’ – but executing set plays makes the possessions go a little longer and makes the defense against us labor a bit. We are doing some things to change.

"We are not the same team we were two and a half weeks ago when we were playing 11 guys. Obviously, we were downhill, getting the ball rebounds, tilting the floor, attacking the basket. We definitely made some adjustments because of our rotations. Never, ever, ever make any excuses or give any explanations. It is what it is."

The players aren't about to use the injury issues as a crutch to explain away their recent skid, either. They simply chalk it up to being "part of the game" that every player has to deal with directly or indirectly at some point in their playing career.

“At the end of the day, we really can’t make excuses," guard J'Vonne Hadley said. "That’s a big part that we really hang our hats on, just not making excuses. Guys go down, it’s a part of basketball, injuries, and it’s just something that you have to deal with and be able to adapt to. We're still trying to figure it out, and again we can’t make excuses."

Based on how Louisville performed in the first half against Duke, there is reason to believe that they are starting to figure out how to play short-handed from a schematic standpoint. It's just building up the endurance to be able to play that way.

On that note, Kelsey didn't completely rule out potentially adding someone mid-year to try and counter said fatigue, or anything else. He's determined to try and find the answers to how Louisville will be able to compete deep into a game given their available players.

“Everything’s on the table," he said. "I don’t sleep figuring out what buttons to push to get this team to be the best that they can be. We’ll scour every inch of the Earth to figure out how we can improve our team, and whether that happens or not, I have no idea. I’m willing to try anything. My major focus is on these young men on the roster and pouring into them every single day."

(Photo of Pat Kelsey: Sam Upshaw Jr. - Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

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