CINCINNATI (WDRB) — Somewhere between the seven-and-a-half-minute shooting drought and Mikel Brown’s rim-rattling redemption, between the grunts and groans of another old-school scrap with Cincinnati, Louisville found something.
Maybe it was oxygen. Maybe it was edge.
Maybe it was whatever Pat Kelsey shouted — or whispered like a mad monk — inside the halftime locker room. He says you can’t go to the well too often. But Friday night in Heritage Bank Center, he had a little something for his team that had been pushed around and bullied a bit in the first half.
“We were oh-for-four,” he said. On what? Transition. Rebounding. Physicality. Toughness. Those are non-negotiables for Kelsey and Louisville. In those areas in the first half, Cincinnati was the hammer. Louisville was the nail.
And then, something shifted. The guys in red didn’t just respond — they retaliated. With poise. With pace. With a little nastiness of their own.
The Fru Awakening
Let’s start here: Sananda Fru changed the game.
His box score won’t hang in the Louvre (11 points, 4 rebounds, 2 blocks), but the second half belonged to his body blows. He took a Cincinnati elbow to the chest and offered them his chin. He blocked shots, grabbed boards, and generally behaved like a man who had been personally insulted by a few bumps and bruises and missed chances at the rim.
Fru played 13 minutes after halftime. Louisville was +9 in those minutes. That’s not coincidence. That’s conquest.
When Kelsey spoke postgame of “aggressive counseling,” Fru might’ve been the first name on the appointment sheet. Actually, he was on the appointment sheet. You can take out the “might.”
Wooley’s mammoth effort
Adrian Wooley didn’t play like the biggest guy on the floor. He just played like one of the baddest. A couple of hustle rebounds, a couple of smooth finishes, and a team-high +15 on the night, which is analytics speak for “don’t take this guy out.”
Louisville's Adrian Wooley attempts to fight through traffic in the lane in the first half of the Cards' 74-64 win over Cincinnati.
Wooley, like Fru, answered the call. He didn’t need 20 points. He brought 20 pounds of grit and a 4-for-4 trip to the foul line, just when Louisville needed someone — anyone — to deliver calm in the chaos.
Conwell’s Compass
And then there’s Ryan Conwell. The Bearcat Whisperer.
Three teams. Three meetings. Same Conwell. He knows Cincinnati. Lived here for a season at Xavier. And he knows the Bearcats.
He was the guy who didn’t flinch. When Cincinnati tried to blow up every screen, bulldoze every drive and make layups illegal, Conwell didn’t blink. He just stepped around the rubble and banged home five threes.
“Just his way about him gives guys courage and gives them confidence,” Kelsey said. “And you can just look at him, at his eyes in timeouts, in big moments, and he's been there, done that. He's not afraid. He stepped up in a big way for us tonight.”
In a locker room full of chaos, Conwell is the metronome. Tick. Tick. Boom. He finished with 25. Seventeen in the second half. No nerves, no nonsense. Just buckets.
Mikel’s Moment
Mikel Brown began his night shooting like a man trying to thread a needle with a boxing glove.
But when it mattered, when the Bearcats had clawed back within six and the 50-year-old arena felt like a pressure cooker with no vent? He delivered.
First a three from the wing, cleaner than a church window. Then a steal and a one-man fast break that ended with a thunderous dunk and a Cincinnati timeout that felt more like a truce.
Brown finished with 22 points, went 12-for-14 at the line, and handled Cincinnati’s “let’s-make-him-beat-us” strategy like a guy with a royal flush and a grin.
Cincinnati coach Wes Miller admitted postgame: “We wanted to keep the ball in his hands.” Turns out that might’ve been the worst idea of the night.
Blood, sweat, and ball screens
This was not a game for the highlight reel. This was a game you keep in a vault and show your team in February when everyone’s tired and sore and grumbling about 6 a.m. lifts.
Louisville shot 26 percent in the first half. The ball screens were detonated on arrival. The layups were blindfolded. The officials called the game like it was 1995.
Ryan Conwell drives the lane to open scoring in the second half of Louisville's 74-64 win over Cincinnati.
And still, Louisville endured. Then adapted. Then imposed its will. It must be noted – Cincinnati’s Baba Miller left the game in the second half. He’s UC’s best player. It changed things. Kelsey acknowledged that.
Kelsey also said it was a “fist fight.” He’s not wrong. It was also a roadmap.
It’s the kind of game you have to win if you want to be elite. Win on a night when your jumpers clang and your freshman star misses nine shots, and still carries you home.
That’s what Louisville did. Beating Kentucky was good for the program’s soul. What it did at Cincinnati Friday night might, in the long run, be more useful.
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