What Pat Kelsey, Chucky Hepburn Said After Louisville's 77-74 Win vs. UTEP

Read what the head coach of the Cardinals and their starting point guard said after their win over the Miners:

Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey instructs his team against Ole Miss during their game at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Ky. on Dec. 3, 2024. / Sam Upshaw Jr./Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Louisville men's basketball program certainly didn't make it easy on themselves, but they were able to hold off UTEP for just long enough, escaping with a 77-74 victory.

Here's what head coach Pat Kelsey and point guards Chucky Hepburn had to say following the win:

Head Coach Pat Kelsey

(Opening Statement) 

“I thought it was a heck of a college basketball game. I knew in watching tape and in preparation that this was going to be a very, very tough game, and it was hard fought. [I have] a ton of respect for [UTEP]. They're number one in the country in creating turnovers. They play hard, they play hard, they fly around. They contest every single stinking pass, and we talk so much about having to play clean. We had to play clean. We couldn’t allow what we call ‘turnovers for touchdowns’. We did that early on in the first four minutes of the game. I want to say there were five turnovers in that first four-minute segment, maybe five [minutes]. Then for the rest of the game we had eight [turnovers]. We had three [turnovers] in the second half. Chucky Hepburn, I say all the time, just because of our depth situation [and] our roster makeup right now, with the injuries. If our point guard play was a pitching staff, it would be Chucky Hepburn and then pray for rain. So, seven assists, two turnovers by [Hepburn] tonight. There were just so many guys that I talked about in the locker room, seven assists, two turnovers [for Chucky Hepburn]. We only had three turnovers in the second half. I thought J’Vonne Hadley was a beast for us tonight, whatever he had, 13 [points] and 12 [rebounds], just an absolute warrior. I thought James Scott was an absolute warrior tonight - hit 11 [points] and 11 [rebounds], [had] five offensive rebounds. Just played really, really hard. I thought Terrence Edwards and Khani Rooths gave us a great boost in the second half. Neither one of them played very well in the [first] half, and they walked off the floor like somebody just shot their dog and somebody just stole their lunch money at school. [Edwards and Rooths] responded, put a smile on their face, ran out in the second half, gave us phenomenal energy, [created] big moments or big plays. Reyne [Smith] knocked those two big free throws down late in the game. So, our guys just showed a lot of resolve, a lot of resiliency.

[We] didn’t shoot the ball to our standard, but the process has been great. The guys’ process, the shooting that we [do in practice], the getting reps up every day, keeping their head up, staying confident. Those results are going to start to show. As I told you guys, I believe so much in our guys and the back of their bubble gum card. But we didn’t allow [poor shooting] to affect the rest of our game. I thought our rebounding was superb – 42 percent of our misses. [We] had a few breakdowns in the second half defensively, but overall, there was just a grit and tenacity. Our guys played hard, took care of the ball, didn’t allow our lack of great shooting tonight affect all the other areas in our game. So, you could look at that and be like, ‘Well, Louisville beat UTEP by three.’ No, our guys played well, our guys played hard, their guys played hard, they’re guys played well. It was a really good game, and I am proud of our guys for having the toughness to gut out a gutsy win there at the end.”

(On changes made at halftime to cut down on turnovers) 

“We have a bunch of set plays, like every team in the country runs set plays. We finally stopped trying to make passes. We’d put little variations on our plays, so that we could still run certain actions, but not have to enter and things like that, because [UTEP] was just making it too hard. [Those] were some of the adjustments that we made, and allowed the ball to stay in Chucky [Hepburn’s] hands a lot, but obviously in transition everybody has the ball. They make it hard; they contest every pass; they make it hard for you to get ball movement and they dare you to play off [of] the attack. Credit to them, they’ve got a good scheme, they’re well coached and they play really, really hard.” 

(On during their eight-point lead, if there was an emphasis on getting to the free-throw line) 

“We always do that. That is always first and foremost in our offense, is play downhill, play on the attack, get to te free-throw line. We do that all the time, we did that in the first half. [UTEP] makes it hard, you can put your head down and say you're going to the rim, but it seems like they have 14 guys out there, and six of them are running and flooding at your penetration. So, you have to do what the game tells you to do, and if the game tells you to spray that thing out, you spray it out. I thought we did that for the most part, that’s why I say, ‘the process.’ We're not going to change and tell guys ‘Hey you have an open look, don’t shoot it,’ step up there and knock that sucker down. If you miss it don’t blink an eye, shoot the next one. They kind of stayed attached more in the second half. [UTEP] didn’t jump ball screens as much and put two on the ball, so it allowed us to get downhill and put foul pressure on them.” 

(How challenging is it to get a team emotionally ready to play a midweek game after a game against Duke and before Kentucky?)

“We get a bunch of free sneakers, we wear sweatsuits to work. My kids are healthy, my wife is hot, I’ve got a pretty good life. We get to play college basketball. We get to play in the Yum Center We get to get ready for Utah. My dad used to say all the time, I’d say, ‘Dad you’ve got to go to work today?’ and he’d say ‘Son, I get to go work today.’ Heck yeah. The schedule has been a little bit difficult, we’ve had some adversity, but these guys have been awesome. The process has been great, the results will take care of themselves. It’s just on to the next one. The most important game in the history of the program is the next one we play. That one is Saturday, three hours ago, it was this one right here.”

(On success inside the lane – do you feel the need to create more looks inside with how well the team is shooting inside?)

“Our two-point percentage is one of the best in the country… It is always priority number one to get downhill. The highest percentage shot in the game is a free throw, so we just try to generate free throws first, the second highest percentage is a shot at the rim, let’s try to get those. And then sometimes peoples’ schemes are to try to stop you from getting to the rim, so you’ve probably got to do what the game tells you and throw the ball to that guy. And then crash the glass like a you-know-what. We did that. We were like a bunch of crazed dogs pursuing… because those were loose balls. I told you before, my mom never said good luck or score 20 tonight, it was like ‘you’d better dive for the loose ones.’ Loose balls are on the floor and loose balls are up in the air, they’re 50-50 balls. It’s not yours, it’s not mine – it’s somebody’s, go get it. I mentioned those guys that went to get the ball in the air tonight and did a great job – didn’t shoot it as well, but we were going to get our misses.”

(On J’Vonne Hadley as a rebounder)

“Rebounding is grit, tenacity. It’s toughness, it’s going and getting the ball. We’re a good rebounding team That’s it. It’s heart, it’s toughness, it’s grit, it’s hustle, that’s what rebounding is. When you’re a good rebounder like J’Vonne is, they try to block you out and he still gets it. Then they put two guys on him. The excuse is now they’ve got two guys on him and you can’t get it. Go get it. And if you can’t get it, touch it, maybe when you touch it, somebody else will get it. That’s rebounding, it’s the easiest thing to coach. It’s hard to do, but it’s the standard. A guy that helped teach me how to coach, a guy named is Dave Davis – he’s a DII coach for a long time – led the country in scoring for a million years, he was on my staff at Winthrop and College of Charleston – a savant. You ask coaches about Dave Davis, they’ll know who Dave Davis is… he would say ‘this is your mentality, you go after the ball like you’re the only one who can get it, and if you don’t get it, we’re going to lose.’ That’s the mentality. Go get it.”

(On getting the team focused and locked in for Saturday at Kentucky)

“Next thing. Next. We celebrate the wins, because winning college basketball games is hard. We work our butts off and we get free shoes and we get to wear sweatsuits to work and stuff. It’s hard. It’s a good team, hard to prepare for… some injuries, a bunch of big games in a row… We celebrate in that locker room – always do. Against Spalding in the preseason – celebrate. Now, once they get back to their dorms, or as soon as the coaches leave here – boom it’s on to the next thing. By the time they wake up tomorrow, this one’s over. The next important thing in the history of our program is the next thing we do, and that’s the lifting session tomorrow. And then it’ll be the film session and then it'll be the first repetition at practice tomorrow. That’s it.”

(How much has the identity of the team changed due to injuries)

“It changes obviously because of the depth piece with guys moving into new and expanded roles and things like that. It’s been an interesting week and a half as we’re figuring stuff some stuff out, a little bit of it is on the fly. We’ll get Kader (Aboubacar Traore) back in a couple of weeks. He’s working his butt off behind the scenes, just doing as much as he can. Actually he’s not cleared to dribble and things like that, but he can do conditioning. Even the guys that are out – KP (Kasean Pryor) had his surgery today, it went great, successful. We texted back and forth, I was in a group chat with his dad. He had his uniform today, he was in his hospital stuff and gave the Ls up. Those guys have big roles on our team as well. They’re leaders, they’re vocal, impacting winning in their 25-strong roles. Everybody’s on board whether you’re in a uniform or not in a uniform. We’re evolving as a team, we’re figuring it out as we go along. I’m proud of our guys and how they’re attacking this.

Point Guard Chucky Hepburn

(On how he’s had to adjust with different personnel as the point guard)

“The past two games I’ve been really proud of the team. We’re finding ways to really dig deep and obviously we’re a new team, we’re still trying to figure out how to play with each other, especially late down the stretch in games like this. I was really proud of my team tonight. Credit to UTEP. They’re a really good team and I think they can even be a March Madness team. We were able to find ways to win the game, just get stops and capitalize off those stops. We were able to get some momentum going late second half so we just have to find ways to keep our foot on the gas and keep it going even more.”

(On the difficulty staying focused on UTEP when you had Duke the game before and will play Kentucky on Saturday)

“We just take it day by day. We just focus on the next thing, and the next thing for us was UTEP after the Duke game and now we’re turning the page going on to Kentucky. We know how big of a rivalry game that is and we know we’re going to be focused for that game. We were able to come out with a win this game. We’re going to celebrate the rest of the night then tomorrow we’re flipping the page. Whatever happened this game happened, so we just got to move on.”

(On being down three guys from the start of the season)

“Like I said, it’s the next man up mentality. Obviously, it hurts not having those guys on the floor with us, but you know that were going to be able to do whatever it takes to win games. We’re all winners, we all come from different places, and we won a lot of games. We’re going to dig deep, we’re going to trust our coach’s system, and we’re going to be able to find ways to win games.”

 (On taking us through the play when James dunked)

“I kind of just saw there was one defender, kind of back there. I kind of baited him into thinking I was going to skip across, and I was able to find James. James had a grown man catch and he was able to just go catch it and dunk it.”

(Photo of Reyne Smith, Pat Kelsey, Chucky Hepburn: Sam Upshaw Jr.Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via 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