LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Remember when Pat Kelsey was wearing that space suit over the summer and proclaimed, “Louisville basketball is back?” On Saturday at Pittsburgh, against a solid NCAA Tournament team in a tough road environment, his Cardinals put a significant stamp of legitimacy on that statement.
Fire up the rocket ship. Louisville scrapped and battled and overcame foul trouble and its own shooting woes, then out-toughed and outplayed Pittsburgh down the stretch to close out an 82-78 victory in the Petersen Events Center, where the Panthers were looking to match their longest home winning streak in 20 years.
"I'm proud of our guys," Kelsey said. "You know, showed a lot of resilience, there were a lot of times in the game where they punched us in the mouth, but our guys responded on many occasions, offensively and defensively. They answered the call and answered the challenges that they present."
Louisville had lost five in a row to Pittsburgh by a margin of nearly 24 points. That, it would appear, has been fixed. Kelsey has the Cardinals at 12-5 before the second week in January is out, matching the program's win total from the previous two years.
After trailing by eight points early, Louisville used a defensive stand to hold the Panthers scoreless for more than five minutes in a 15-3 run to gain a handle on the game. In the second half, the Cards made 9 of 16 three pointers, including 4 of 5 from Reyne Smith.
They trailed by two with 6:58 left, but a Smith layup and back-to-back scores from J’Vonne Hadley, who battled foul trouble the whole game and had just come back in, put the Cards up by five. Pitt would keep coming back, and took its own one-point lead on a three by Zack Austin with three minutes left.
But that lead lasted only 18 seconds. Smith answered with a three of his own to put Louisville back up two, and the Cardinals wouldn’t trail again. Five straight points by Smith put Louisville back up by five with 1:20 left, and after a Pittsburgh three, Louisville was able to seal the game when Hadley rebounded his own missed three-pointer, and Chucky Hepburn ran down the clock before hitting a runner in the lane with eight seconds to play.
Louisville did an excellent -- and selfless -- job of finding Smith in transition. It also was relentless on the offensive glass, outscoring Pitt 22-7 on second-chance points. An official count had Louisville scoring on 6 of 8 possessions directly out of timeouts.
Smith, who led the Cardinals with 25 points and made 7 of 11 threes in the game, hit such a variety of shots that Kelsey acknowledged his creativity in getting him looks was taxed.
"You're starting to get to the bottom of the barrel of all the sets," Kelsey said. ". . . We just wound up running a flare screen to get him open at the end. . . . Auy like Reyne, when he starts seeing it go in, the rim looks bigger and bigger, and I've been around him long enough to know that when he really gets going, he always says, 'The rim looks like the ocean.' He saw a couple go down, started to get in rhythm, and he's hard to deal with once he's playing like that."
Said Smith: "I mean, I kind of give credit to the guys for putting trust in me every single day, and the work we do every single day. There's no real secret to that. But I give credit to my guys because there's days where I don't make shots at all, and they still trust me to tell me to shoot the next one. They're still trying to find me. And it kind of builds confidence, and hopefully I can build confidence for the rest of the guys."
James Scott finished with nine rebounds to lead Louisville's dominant rebounding attack. Louisville's offensive rebounding was a major weapon in a game where the Cards missed nine free-throws and 13 layups.
"To me, the key to being a good offensive rebounding team is just ... nasty," Kelsey said. "Go get the stinking ball. Somebody blocks you out, no excuses, go get it. Strictly toughness. Strictly being connected to what we're doing. It's kind of the standard here."
For Louisville, it was a sixth straight victory – the program’s longest winning streak since 2020. It also is Louisville’s first five-game winning streak in ACC play since 2020.
Louisville-Pittsburgh game statistics. (Click to enlarge)
Smith led Louisville with 25 points – including 16 in the second half. Hepburn added 15, Terrence Edwards 14 and Hadley 13. James Scott had nine rebounds to lead a team rebounding attack that bludgeoned Pittsburgh on the boards, 44-31.
Kelsey praised his team's maturity for being able to close out the game, and for being able to make fixes on the fly.
"Whether we're up two or down two, the 12-minute mark or four-minute mark, you just have to compartmentalize each possession," Kelsey said. "We say all the time we have a 0-0 mentality. And we’ll get in the huddle and say 'What’s broken?' At times it was ball screen coverage today. At times it was transition defense. But we have a bunch of pros that you say what needs to be fixed in the huddle and they go out and do it. So they keep responding to adversity and make big shots when we need them.”
They’ll stay on the road, traveling to Syracuse to try to extend their winning streak on Tuesday.
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