LOS ANGELES, Calif. (WDRB) -- The Louisville men's basketball team will begin its final day of 2025 at the ballpark, doing its strength and conditioning work in the San Francisco Giants training facility at Oracle Park.
Cardinals' coach Pat Kelsey confessed he may be more fired up about it than his players.
"It's out near the bullpen area, and maybe we'll get to walk out on the field and look out and see McCovey Cove, or where Barry Bonds used to drop bombs," he told Bob Valvano on his radio show after Louisville beat California on Tuesday. "I don't know how excited the players are about the baseball thing — but I am going to be at that ballpark."
After that, the Cardinals will pay a visit to the Golden State Warriors practice facility down the street.
It all comes on the heels of a 90-70 dismantling of a Cal team that came into Tuesday's ACC opener on a nine-game winning streak.
Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Eric Crawford
The Cardinals improved to 11-2 this season and finish the 2025 calendar year with 30 wins. That's more than the program has had in a decade. The last year Louisville won that many was 2015, when it won 34.
This Louisville team is not without weaknesses. It has lost a couple of road games to SEC opponents handily. But it also has flashed resilience when needed. It has played three straight games without its freshman phenom, Mikel Brown Jr., and Tuesday also played without Kasean Pryor.
It played with heavy foul trouble against Cal. Isaac McKneely had to log 35 minutes. He finished with 11 points, as did J'Vonne Hadley, who had 11 points, nine rebounds, three assists, a block and a steal in his 31 minutes.
Louisville's Sananda Fru goes up for a score against Tennessee in a loss on Dec. 16, 2025, in Knoxville.
Ryan Conwell still managed to score 26 points in his 25 minutes, and when he was on the bench with fouls, Adrian Wooley continued to emerge.
It's easy to forget, Wooley is younger than the other portal additions. His start to the season was perhaps a bit slower, and his acclimation to Louisville's level of competition may have been a bit steeper.
Yet starting for Brown over the past three games, he has averaged 15.3 points per game and shot 50% from the field. He had 21 points on 9-15 shooting at Cal.
"I told you," Kelsey told Valvano. "I'm not saying 'I told you,' but he's a competitor too, man. Like you go on the road, you're gonna win on the road in tough environments. He's just a dude that you look at and he doesn't blink. He's not afraid. He wants the moment. He wants the shot."
Also continuing his improvement is Sananda Fru. The German big man had 13 points and 14 rebounds at Cal.
"It's funny, sometimes I struggle with his disposition," Kelsey told Valvano. "When you look out there, sometimes I'm like, put a mirror under his nose to see if he's breathing. I got all upset with him a couple times, and I looked at Cass (assistant Mike Cassidy), and ask, 'Well, what's wrong with him? And he goes, 'Coach, he's got 13 and 14.' He was a beast on the glass tonight."
Those two, in particular, are key pieces if the Cards are to continue their team improvement, and play more competitive games against the top teams on their schedule. Khani Rooths could be another, and Kelsey noted that he was on the court for a couple of important bursts on Tuesday.
Louisville could've gotten frustrated with the foul situation – 16 of them in the first half – but didn't. It could've panicked when Cal went on a 14-0 run to pull within 11 points the second half. It didn't, instead scoring nine straight of its own to put the game away.
"We had a couple of good responses," Kelsey said.
The Cardinals closed the book on 2025 in a good place, a dominant ACC road performance midway through a west coast swing. The health of Brown is a lingering concern. But the health of the program, after an extended period of struggle, is not.
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