What Pat Kelsey, Louisville Players Said After 100-68 Win vs. Bellarmine

Read what the head coach of the Cardinals, Kasean Pryor and Terrence Edwards Jr. said after their win over the Knights:

Nov 19, 2024; Louisville, Kentucky, USA; Louisville Cardinals head coach Pat Kelsey reacts during the first half against the Bellarmine Knights at KFC Yum! Center. / Jamie Rhodes-Imagn Images

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - 10 days after being dealt a humbling loss by Tennessee, the Louisville men's basketball program got back in the win column with authority, blasting crosstown foe Bellarmine with a 100-68 win.

Here's what head coach Pat Kelsey, forward Kasean Pryor and guard/forward Terrence Edwards Jr. had to say following the win:

Head Coach Pat Kelsey

(Opening Statement)

“There is a group of people that I acknowledged in the locker room after we broke huddle and that is the group that I want to get acknowledged for the impact they have on our program and that is our student managers and our graduate assistants. If you are an employer out there, hire them and thank me later. They are the best group of managers that I have ever been around. They are crucial to the success of the organization.”

“In terms of the game today, I want to acknowledge Scotty (Davenport) and Bellarmine. I have the utmost respect for the program that Scotty has built. He is known in coaching circles as a kind of innovator, a savant if you will. They play a unique style that is their own brand. It is difficult to prepare for as they do a ton of movement and a ton of cutting. I just have a lot of respect for them. We have a couple of drills that are named for him – the Knights’ Shooting Drill, which is a ball penetration drill that I got from Scott. Scott was very good friends with my mentor, Skip Prosser, and we shared a lot of conversations over the years after we lost Coach Prosser. They were short-handed tonight without their leading scorer. I loved how our players responded from a really tough loss at home nine days ago.  You always like to get back up on the horse after tough loss like that. And to have to stew over it for nine days, I thought our guys approached the game the right way. We had great film sessions, terrific practices and came out and played really well tonight.”

(About responding after the Tennessee loss)

“I love our team. I am bullish on our team. I love to coach them. We said in the locker room that team has a really good chance to play at a high level. They responded to the loss in the right way and knew we had a lot of stuff to clean up and they did it. They are a together team. They enjoy being around each other. They played together tonight, and the statistics speak to that. There were guys in double figures. They shared the ball and there was a good assists-to-turnover ratio. I love coaching these guys. They have a toughness about them. They have a certain maturity about them. I am proud of how they responded.”

(About having a shot clock violation early in the first half and what Coach Kelsey said in the huddle about it)

“Really early, we got a shot clock violation, and we got it all the way down to the end. I am sure it [what he said in the huddle] was absolute genius basketball coaching. I tell you; Jimmy Naismith was shivering in his grave with what I told them. To answer that, I really don’t know what I said.  I probably told them to go down and get a stop, but I really can’t remember  what I told them specifically.”

(On what Koren Johnson and Aboubacar Traore need to do to get back on the floor and get healthy)

“Kader [Aboubacar Traore] has to have his bone heal, he fractured his arm, so that’s just a healing process. Koren [Johnson] has a shoulder injury, and that has to heal as well. Another person I need to acknowledge, because she doesn’t get enough credit, is - we call her ‘Kate the Great’ - Kate Creznic. She is our sports medicine trainer, and she is phenomenal. The work she does behind the scenes to get our guys healthy, deal with injuries, do recovery stuff. [Traore and Johnson] are in great hands, and they’ll continue to grow while they’re out. They’ll watch film and be extensions of the coaching staff and be valued members of the 25 strong until they get back. Until then, next man up.”

(Timeframe for both injuries)

“I don’t know. You would have to ask Kate [Creznic].”

(On the benefits of bringing Kasean Pryor off the bench as opposed to starting him)

“The benefits of bringing Kasean [Pryor] off the bench? I mean, a benefit would be he is a really stinking good player. You bring him, a really good player, off the bench and that raises the level of play. There’s no major reason why he’s not in the starting lineup. Kasean is one of our best players. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. It’s just how it is, like playing time is earned every day throughout practice, you know all those things, those are earned behind closed doors in practice. Kasean is working his butt off and having a great approach and getting better every day. I got after him a couple times late in the second half, when he had a couple kind of lackadaisical defensive possessions, and I lit him up a bit in the timeout. I thought he played for as good of four minutes of defensive basketball as he has played all year. We got 42 percent of our misses in the second half after only getting 20 percent of our misses in the first half, and I think he was a big part of that.”

(On Khani Rooths getting more time and what PK saw from him)

“I thought Khani [Rooths] did some really good things. I lit him up a little bit in a timeout because we had him on 33 [Bellarmine’s Ben Johnson] and I think he had like 620 points at the time. He got loose for a couple rhythm threes off some of their actions. I just said ‘Look, man, I’m putting a freshman on a kid that’s as hot as a firecracker, and I need you to stay locked in.’ He responded the right way, ‘You're right, Coach.’ I thought he played hard. Obviously, he is ultra-talented, he has a very, very bright future. But that next man up mentality is like, not just Khani because obviously he’s a guy that is going to replace their role a little bit, but everybody’s role is going to change a little bit because you lose two very valued members of your roster. So, that is one of the fun things about coaching, obviously, not losing players and having players get injured, but it’s going back to the lab and figuring out and seeing what some of the adjustments that you have to make to compensate. That’s part of it.”

(On figuring out the balance between attacking the basket and taking three-point attempts)

“Our mentality is to attack first and threes create themselves. We don’t have a picked number; we don’t have a number of how many threes we shoot. We have a certain number of paint touches we want to get by playing downhill, and then when you get rid of those threes, you step up and knock them down. We didn’t shoot it great in the Tennessee game, but you’ve got to tip your cap to Tennessee and their defense, but we shot it well tonight.”

(What was the gameplan that resulted in such an effective shooting night?)

“We say we want to hunt great, hunt great, hunt great. That’s hunting great shots. We generate great and it doesn’t go in, I sleep like a baby. It’s a make, miss game. Sometimes it goes in and sometimes it doesn’t. But as long as we’re trying to generate great shots, high percentage shots. I didn’t think we generated enough of those against Tennessee, shots around the rim. We took what I call “Simone Biles” shots or high degree difficulty shots against Tennessee. We took too many of those, even the open looks we did have in that game we didn’t knock them down. I’d not like to talk about that game (Tennessee) anymore if we could, that’d be nice.”

(What did you learn from watching Bellarmine tonight, that might influence future strategies?)   

 “I’m a hoop junkie. I just love, love, love watching basketball and film. Every game you dive into, because there is a million ways to skin a cat, a lot of different ways to play. I always keep my notebook and make notes of whomever I’m watching whether that is Morehead State, Tennessee, or whomever. You can always learn, coaching we are all a bunch of thieves we are always trying to steal things. Scotty is a terrific coach and by watching their scout the last couple of days, I obviously learned a lot and it was an honor to compete against him.”

(On Reyne Smith)

“Reyne is way more than just a shooter, there’s no question. He is a basketball player. He is a very reliable defender, solid. I don’t think he gets enough credit for his defense. He’s tough as nails. He does all the little things: solid rebounder, good playmaker, obviously a terrific, elite shooter.”

Forward Kasean Pryor and Guard/Forward Terrence Edwards Jr.

(On what was said in the timeout early in the first half)

Terrence Edwards, G/F, Fifth Year:

“He said that we had to run our offense with intensity. They came out in a zone, so he said whatever they throw at us we got to be ready to respond. That’s been the biggest thing from the last game to this game, is being ready to respond to everything they throw at us.”

(On the last 10 days following the Tennessee game, how do you feel like the team grew?)

Terrence Edwards, G/F, Fifth Year:

“I think everybody is hungry. When you get hit in the mouth in front of 20,000 at your house, it forces you to want to go back to practice and fix everything that you did wrong. We have a really experienced team, and we all came together as players without the coaches and said that it would never happen again. We’ll be ready for any challenge going forward that comes our way. Win, lose, or draw. We won’t ever get out-toughed or outrebounded again. That’s what we did the last eight days, get our identity back.”

(On what was working tonight)

Terrence Edwards, G/F, Fifth Year:

“I had eight days to think over how I played against Tennessee and I’m a very confident player. I just had to get back to that and believe in myself and bet on myself like I always do throughout my whole career. It got me here, so I have to depend on that and play my game within the team and the system moving forward. That’s the type of shots I take, step backs or whatever - I’ve been taking them for four years. Going into every game with the utmost confidence from here on out and trying to get better as a team.”

(On earning his way to the starting role – is that important to him?)

Kasean Pryor, F, Fifth Year

“I just focus on being the best I can be for my team. It’s my fifth year of college, so I’ve had a lot of ups and downs of not playing, worrying about starting, am I going to start early in my career. For me, it doesn’t, it doesn’t really matter anymore. The next level NBA scouts, that doesn’t matter if you’re starting or as you come up next. It doesn’t really matter. As long as I come out there and be the best teammate I can be. I think that is going to translate and help us as a whole.

At South Florida, yeah, I was thinking earlier in advance like, ‘man those first five games I didn’t start.’ It was about finding my rhythm in line of what can I do for the team to make us the best. I think it is the same approach here; I’m just playing my role. I can’t worry about who’s starting, who’s playing. All I control is what I can control and that’s me. I trust my coaches; I came here because I trust PK and the rest of the staff with my career. It’s just worrying about how I can be the best player and teammate for our team and everything else will handle itself.”

(On having time to prepare for being down two players due to injury)

 Kasean Pryor, F, Fifth Year

“I’ll just say its next man up. It was definitely unexpected that took two tough losses from guys who played heavy minutes for us and can really help our team win. We know it’s basketball at the end of the year, every year, somebody gets injured on the team, somebody goes down and somebody has to step up. So, we had a little bit of preparation without them to understand how we were going to play with their absence. But for us, its next man up. PK stresses that, somebody’s got to step up now. Prayers to those guys get healthy and hopefully they’ll be back soon.”

(On approaching rebounding with a smaller back court compared to other ACC teams they will face later in the season)

Kasean Pryor, F, Fifth Year

“I’ll just say, we stick to our identity. We really pride ourselves on being a really good rebounding team, offensive rebounding team. So just doing our job consistently. Also our toughness, finding different ways, being scrappy, positioning. There’s a lot of things that go into it and help us rebounding. Obviously, we will play bigger teams in the ACC. Tennessee showed is that they were a bigger team, they were able to outrebound us. So, for us to just find it in the film and stick to our identity of consistently crashing the glass and being tough.”

(Photo of Pat Kelsey: Jamie Rhodes - Imagn Images)

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