LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — According to Ken Pomeroy’s college basketball analytics website, there was something special about the game the University of Louisville men’s basketball team played against Lipscomb Tuesday night at the KFC Yum! Center.

It wasn’t the 6 p.m. starting time. It wasn’t that one of Lipscomb’s top players (Derrin Boyd) was a transfer from Georgetown College who played high school ball in Princeton, Kentucky.

It was this: This was the final game this season where Pomeroy’s numbers showed Louisville as the favorite, with a win probability of 54%.

IMAGES | Lipscomb men's basketball defeats Louisville 75-67

Time to rewrite the program formula. The wise guys in Las Vegas, who made the Bison a 1-point favorite, knew better.

Lipscomb 75, Louisville 67.

This was no fluke. The Cards led for less than five minutes.

"They puts us on our heels," U of L coach Kenny Payne said. "We never imposed our will. We were never the aggressor ... I knew it would be hard for us to come out if we didn't focus and be desperate defensively and be disciplined defensively. 

"We just couldn't mentally get it. Couldn't get it mentally to play with the energy we needed to fight forward."

Payne questioned whether all of his players were as focused on Lipscomb as they should have been, which is an alarming concern for a team that lost its first nine games and was playing an opponent that nearly beat Notre Dame and played within eight points of Michigan last weekend.

"There were some casual moments," U of L forward Jae'Lyn Withers said. "Perhaps in practice and shoot-around that he might be referring to. Something he always says is that we can't afford to be casual. We have to be locked in and focused at all times to win."

The Cards fell behind by a dozen points in the second half and then cut the Bison’s lead to 71-67 with 3:19 to play.

Louisville failed to score again.

Turnover. Missed shot. Missed shot. Turnover. Missed shot. You know the pattern. Of the 30 baskets that Lipscomb made, 18 were layups. For the record, Louisville had a dozen layups. U of L was out-rebounded by 14 by a team several inches smaller at nearly every position.

"That's just effort honestly," U of L forward JJ Traynor said. "Effort and seeing the ball.

"I feel like they were attacking the rebounds harder than we were and it should be the opposite, honestly."

"We worked for two or three days on back cuts and we gave up at least 10 or 12 points on back cuts," Payne said. "I don't know who you can beat when a team shoots 52% in the second half."

The Cards cut their turnovers to 10 but made less than 40% of their field-goal attempts.

El Ellis scored 24 for Payne’s team, which dropped to 2-10. Sydney Curry had 12. 

But the guy Louisville could not stop was the Kentucky kid -- Boyd, a product of Caldwell County, who was at Georgetown College for three seasons before transferring to Lipscomb. Boyd had 23 points. He made 4 of 5 shots from distance. He also grabbed nine rebounds, which was more than any Louisville player, even though Boyd is merely 6 feet, 3 inches tall. Derrin Boyd will have quite a story to tell around his family Christmas dinner.

The Cardinals struggled on defense. Lipscomb made 11 layups in the first half. They went ahead less than seven minutes into the game and never trailed again.

The Bison scored on eight consecutive possessions during that surge — five layups, a pair of three-pointers and an open 17-footer. That’s a recipe for losing a second game this season to a team from the ASUN Conference, the same league as the Bellarmine team that beat U of L to start this season.

After the game Payne appeared more frustrated than he was after several other home losses. Maybe it was the end of the two-game winning streak. Maybe it was losing what appeared to be the most winnable game remaining on the schedule.

Or maybe it was the frustration of having to coach effort and enthusiasm and grit game after game after game.

"In the huddle tonight, I'm saying winning and losing is not a choice," Payne said. 

"The players that make it, the teams that are great, they're not going to get back-door cut. They're not going to not hit somebody and allow a dude to get a rebound. They're not going to not sprint back.

"They know that it translates to winning. They're going to do all the things that it takes to win games. They're going to follow the game plan. They're going to remember the plays. They're going to fight their behinds off to make sure they come out and give themselves the best chance to win.

"We're not there yet. And we've got to get there."

The turnaround for Payne’s team will be quick. On Wednesday, the Cards will fly to Raleigh for their Thursday night game against North Carolina State.

The Wolfpack are 10-3 with three wins over Top 100 opponents. The Cards’ win probability in that game won’t be 54%.

Before the Lipscomb game, Louisville had a 6% win probability. After the defeat, that number dropped to 5%.

"As we all know, the schedule is the schedule," Payne said. "It's not getting easier."

"We really wanted this win really bad so we could feel a lot better going into those next two games," Traynor said. "NC State is a really good team. You've just got to keep working and keep fighting and things will turn around."

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