LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Everybody has to start somewhere. For Pat Kelsey, it was as freshman boys’ basketball coach at Elder High School in Cincinnati, with a scoreless first quarter, a 9-0 deficit and a player dribbling in the wrong direction.
Kelsey talked about the game, sitting back in a folding chair between my WDRB colleague Rick Bozich and me during a get-to-know you interview at the University of Louisville’s Planet Fitness Kueber Center on Thursday. And what I got to know is that Kelsey recalls his very first game in the profession in vivid detail. He estimated that the first quarter might’ve set a new low for Elder basketball, but the next period began hopefully.
“To start the second quarter, the other team threw the ball in and starts dribbling at the wrong basket,” he said. “So I was like, ‘Heck yeah, we're gonna get our first basket. They're gonna make one for us.’ Well, a kid named Ricky Wehee ran him down and blocked the shot and fouled the crap out of him. So that was interesting.”
He remembers the score. The kid who blocked the shot. And the outcome. Lest you should wonder, Kelsey’s Elder freshmen came back to win that game. “Blew them out by one,” he said.
Not long ago, when Kelsey returned to speak at the school, several men from that freshmen team came to hear him.
Louisville coach Pat Kelsey talks with WDRB's Rick Bozich and Eric Crawford.
A great deal of time has passed, but Kelsey now finds himself with a related challenge at Louisville. He has taken over a program headed in the wrong direction and is quickly working to effect a U-turn.
But this isn’t freshman basketball. Kelsey no longer has to wash the uniforms or plan the postgame snacks. He is working in a $20 million practice facility and will coach his games in what amounts to an NBA arena downtown. The problem is that the arena has been virtually empty for two years.
Kelsey knows that he doesn’t need to just breathe life into the basketball team – which he has attempted to do with a dozen transfer portal additions. He needs to breathe life into the fan base.
He's had some success. He got the attention of fans with his introductory news conference. He brought them out of their seats with a hype video several weeks ago, in which he emerged from a fictional transfer portal wearing a real space suit and said, “Ya’ll can tell Card Nation, Louisville basketball is back.”
Last week, in an invitation-only appearance with season-ticketholders, he reiterated his hopeful message: “These guys were carefully selected to fit what we’re about,” he said. “We’re going to be good. Mark this down, we’re going to be good.”
Now, those messages are designed to sell tickets. In addition to wanting to regain the program’s lost position in the college basketball hierarchy, Louisville’s athletics department needs to regain lost revenue from a program that once led the nation in that department – and still is punching well above its weight, considering its struggles the last several seasons.
Still, how Louisville looks on the court to open the season in the KFC Yum! Center – Nov. 4 against Morehead State and Nov. 9 against Tennessee – will be just part of the story. The number of fans in the arena who have found their way back will be just as interesting. And frankly, a large response in the stands could directly influence the result on the court, something Kelsey well knows.
Asked about that “mark it down” comment, Kelsey said, “I forget that everything I say is recorded.”
It's not quite how he would put it with a couple of reporters taking notes. But he is, nonetheless, confident, based on the veteran team he has assembled.
“Just confidence in what we do and how we do it,” he said when asked where the confidence to make such statements comes from. “That's what I believe. . . . We'll figure it out. I love coaching these guys. I love their makeup. I love the ability. I love the talent. I love the process. And the buy-in that all these guys have to what we're doing and how we're building. It is going to be a process. We're not there yet, but it's only mid-July, and over the next several months, we'll come closer together. Guys will become more familiar and comfortable with what we do and with each other. I just love where we’re heading.”
In the near-term, the Cardinals are heading to the Bahamas for a couple of games, a chance to spend a week together, to let chemistry happen, and to play a couple of valuable games against outside competition. The extra practice time allotted to prepare for that trip in itself has been valuable.
Kelsey knows the challenge. He knows what has gone on at Louisville in past years. But he’s not dwelling on it.
“My focus and the way I live my life, both from a professional and personal standpoint, is to be very, very present, where I'm at, and worry about what the next thing is. Moving forward,” Kelsey said. “You know, I say all the time, the most important thing in the history of our program is the next thing we do, the weight sessions, lifting that’s going on right now, then the individual skill sessions after that. It'll be the team practice this afternoon. That's all I worry about. Now listen, I have unbelievable amount of respect for the history of this program and what's come before me and that's what's come right before me. . . . I'm just proud to be the next one in line, and proud to be the one moving this program forward to the next phase of Louisville basketball.”
And if there happens to be an early 9-0 deficit at some point, there’s no need to panic. Kelsey has dealt with that before.
Louisville Basketball Coverage:
- CRAWFORD | Kelsey shoots for the stars in new hype trailer: 'Louisville basketball is back'
- CRAWFORD | No 'fight?' Louisville's Kelsey talks offense and defense, without the f-word
- BOZICH | Louisville basketball newcomers here to win now, starting with head start in Bahamas
- 1-on-1 | Louisville's Pat Kelsey talks players, expectations and his first 70 days on the job
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