LOS ANGELES, Calif. (WDRB) -- People are going to look at the score and think, Louisville dispatches another ACC also ran.
Ho hum. Louisville 90, California 70.
It wasn’t quite that simple. Louisville did face some adversity Tuesday night in Berkeley. It just treated it like a protein shake. It shook it up and guzzled it, leaving Cal’s nine-game winning streak sprawled out on a yoga mat in the process.
The Cards outclassed Cal in about every way a team can, even coming off a 10-day break. Game plan. Execution. Talent, Size.
But this was not a game without difficulty. Freshman point guard Mikel Brown, the Cards’ leading scorer, was scratched in a game-time decision, still battling a bad back. Big man Kasean Pryor also didn’t play.
And when the game started, Louisville looked as if it were going to set a school record for fouls. They had a dozen when the game was barely dozen minutes old. They had 16 for the half.
Still, Louisville led 48-34 at the half, thanks to sharp three-point shooting, good decisions on drives into the paint, where it held a 22-4 scoring advantage at the half.
The opportunities to come unraveled abounded. Frustrating foul calls. Mounting foul trouble. Injuries. Louisville still piled up a 25-point lead midway through the second half.
Still, Cal put together a 14-0 run, and pulled with 73-62 with 6:44 left. At that point, it could’ve been a ballgame.
It wasn’t.
Louisville answered with layups by J’Vonne Hadley and Adrian Wooley, then got a three from Wooley and within 90 seconds, the lead was back to 18.
Wooley was the leader, particularly in the second half, when Conwell had to go to the bench with four fouls. Wooley finished with 21 points on 9 of 14 shooting. Conwell had 26 points himself, on 8 of 15 shooting (6 of 13 from three), including a dagger three with 2:20 left to put the Cards back up by 21.
Sananda Fru added 13 points, while Hadley and Isaac McKneely had 11 each.
The Cards held Cal to 34 percent shooting. And they Aowned the glass like it was a Costco clearance rack: 49-32 in rebounds, with more second chances than a Hallmark Christmas movie.
Louisville (11-2) finished the 2025 calendar year 18-1 in ACC regular season games, and opens conference play this season with a win, and will travel to Stanford (11-3) on Friday.
More Louisville Basketball Coverage:
CRAWFORD | Brown expected back, Pryor out for Louisville's ACC opener at Cal
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