CRAWFORD | Desperation is a weapon. Pat Kelsey wants Louisville to wield it.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- There was a time when "desperation" was a dirty word in sports.

It meant panic. It meant you were losing. It meant you were out of ideas. A "desperation heave." A Hail Mary.

Not anymore.

In modern basketball, desperation has been rebranded. Not as failure. As fuel.

Louisville coach Pat Kelsey made that clear in the lead-up to Wednesday night's home game against Notre Dame. Asked about how he wanted his guards to defend, he didn't name names. He named a mindset.

Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Eric Crawford

"I think the best defenses are the most desperate," Kelsey said. "I think the best teams are the most desperate."

That word — desperate — has come up again and again.

Kelsey isn't alone. Coaches across the country are embracing desperation, not as panic but as a competitive edge.

After Kentucky's win at Arkansas, John Calipari used the word to explain the difference between victory and defeat:

"It's kind of like my team went in last year (and) was more desperate than his team," Calipari said. "This year, his team came in here more desperate than my team."

Desperation, in today's game, is often the difference.

T.J. Otzelberger at Iowa State talked about his team's lack of it after its first loss of the season. Gonzaga's Mark Few said during the NCAA Tournament last season, "If a team isn't desperate in March, they're going home."

And Pat Kelsey? He doesn't want it just in March.

"The same expectation that I have for everybody that puts on a Louisville uniform is to be absolutely desperate on every single possession between whistles," he said. "For that 46.78 seconds — which is the average time between whistles — be desperate."

After Louisville got blown out at Duke last week, Kelsey didn't break down film or diagram tweaks.

He called a football practice.

"We got exposed," he said. "That's unacceptable."

And it wasn't just a message. It was a reset.

He said this week that he's always been a "football practice kind of guy." But the point wasn't punishment. It was recalibration. Louisville needed to be reminded that its identity — its very foundation — is built on effort, toughness, and competitive edge.

"Relentless effort. Grit. Toughness. Tenacity," he said. "What the core principle of our deal is."

The Cards played like it in the bounce-back win over SMU. The game plan wasn't fancy. It was desperate — in the best sense. They fought for loose balls. They swarmed defensively. They responded.

Now comes the question: Can they do it again?

That's the harder part. In sports — and in life — desperation is often easy to summon when you're backed into a corner.

But to Kelsey, the real test isn't how a team responds after getting embarrassed. It's how it plays after it starts to feel good again.

"I feel great," he said this week, "because the last thing that we did was great."

He quickly qualified it. "Not perfect," he said. But good. Competitive. Connected.

The challenge now — beginning Wednesday against a Notre Dame team trying to claw out of the ACC basement — is to maintain it.

Because desperation, as Kelsey defines it, isn't something you feel when you're losing.

It's something you choose when you're building.