CRAWFORD | A Cardinal Christmas Carol: Louisville visits ghosts of basketball past at Arkansas | Sports

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- You can have your holiday classics. Your "Nutcracker." "Your Miracle on 34th Street." In Fayetteville on Wednesday night, we get a different kind of reunion special: Kenny & Cal: The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Louisville at Arkansas. Red vs. redder. Fast vs. faster. Past vs. present. From the minute they announced the SEC-ACC Challenge matchup, the intrigue was obvious.

Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Eric Crawford

It’s not exactly "A Christmas Carol," but Kenny Payne will be there, straight out of Cardinal Christmases past. John Calipari, meanwhile, has restocked and reloaded. He traded in his bluegrass bourbon for Ozark moonshine and found that talent still answers his calls, especially when NIL picks up the tab.

Across from them is Pat Kelsey, Louisville’s full-court evangelist. He’s wandered into this old-school beef like a guy who thought he was coming to a dinner party and walked into a family intervention. He just wants to win a ballgame. His team doesn’t just run. It gallops. The Cardinals lead the nation in scoring margin.

“He’s done a great job,” Calipari said of Kelsey on his radio show Monday. “They’re really good.”

The Cardinals are 7-0. Second in the nation in three-pointers made, they launch like they’re trying to win a NASA contract. They’ve already beaten Kentucky. Now they get their first true road game, one of those “no hotel points for moral victories” kind of nights.

This is not about Louisville’s history with Payne or Calipari. It’s about where Louisville basketball lives right now, and how close it can get to the penthouse.

Kelsey’s team is No. 8 in KenPom, up nearly 300 floors from the Kenny Payne basement. The last time Louisville played Arkansas, the Cards lost by 26 in Maui in Payne’s first season. It was a full-on Jimmy Buffet song: "The Weather is Here, Wish You were Beautiful."

Now, the Cards bomb away. They share the ball like it’s a church potluck. Their freshman point guard, Mikel Brown, has the poise of a player who skipped adolescence and binge-read leadership books.

And yet, they haven’t done it on the road in this young season. That’s what Fayetteville is: a measuring stick. Or maybe a magnifying glass.

“We just talk all the time about road excellence,” Kelsey said. “… What we do from the time we zip open our bags and pack them. The way we practice here before we leave. The way we travel. Our mentality and approach once we land and get to the hotel. The quality of the repetitions of our walk-throughs. Our film session. Just putting ourselves in the best position to play well.”

Arkansas, for its part, is exactly what you’d expect from Calipari: young, fast, terrifying in transition. They rank third in the nation in fast-break points. They get out and go like they’re being chased.

“The floor really tilts when they get the ball,” Kelsey said. “I mean, it goes downhill.”

Transition defense, he said, will be a key. As will Louisville’s usual goals in offensive, defensive and rebounding efficiency. Louisville defensively will be tested by players with talent driving to the rim. And it will need its bigs to continue to improve.

Arkansas leans on its backcourt dynamism, especially freshman Darius Acuff Jr. and Meleek Thomas, who’ve been an ESPN pick as one of the nation’s best rookie duos.

Arkansas will be stretched by Louisville’s ball movement and will need to buck its tendency to turn the ball over. Calipari has also worked this week on late-game situations.

Kelsey likes Calipari. He says the Hall of Famer has been good to him his whole career. He’s spoken with Payne when their paths have crossed in the last year. It’s always been cordial.

This isn’t about old grudges, even if Calipari is going for career win No. 20 against Louisville, with only eight losses. It’s about who’s for real. Bud Walton Arena can turn into a buzzsaw when the band hits the fight song.

Louisville is comfortably in the top 10. It wants to earn its way into the top half of that.

Arkansas, with close losses to Duke and Michigan State, wants to keep from falling out.

And Kelsey? He wants a win. Not a handshake line memory. Not a moral victory against one guy he admires and one he replaced.

This may be a clash of timelines for the coaches involved. But the stakes of the game are firmly rooted in the present.

HOW TO WATCH

No. 6 Louisville (7-0) at No. 25 Arkansas (5-2), Bud Walton Arena, Fayetteville, Ark.

Time: Wednesday, 7:15 p.m. ET

TV: ESPN (Karl Ravech, Jimmy Dykes). Streaming: ESPN app.

Radio: ESPN Louisville, 93.9 FM The Ville (Paul Rogers, Bob Valvano)