Louisville basketball cohesion on display in Pat Kelsey era debut at KFC Yum! Center

Posted by author October 22, 2024 Basketball

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The last time the Louisville men’s basketball team played an exhibition game against a Division II opponent, former coach Kenny Payne dropped one of the most infamous lines of his disastrous two-year tenure: “We can’t be teams with talent.”

What a difference six months can make.

Pat Kelsey’s new-look Cardinals were not only the more talented team on the court Monday night, during a 106-59 win against Young Harris College at the KFC Yum! Center, but they also played with a level of cohesion that was rarely, if ever, seen while Payne was at the helm.

They didn’t look like a group hastily assembled through the NCAA transfer portal this spring. As was the case during a dominant exhibition tour of the Bahamas this summer, they looked as if they’ve been playing together for a couple of seasons.

Make no mistake: U of L will be tested early and often out of the gate, to the tune of potentially eight teams ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 before Jan. 2. The competition it faced Monday night was a step up from the Baha Mar Hoops Summer League — in 2023-24, Young Harris ranked among the top DII teams in terms of field-goal percentage defense (42.4%) — but the Mountain Lions were outclassed from the jump.

Speaking with reporters last week, Kelsey said he and his staff were preparing their players for this game as if they were playing Duke. Some of that can be attributed to his belief that the “next thing” is “the most important” thing; but there are a lot of demons to exorcize in the Yum! Center — starting with two exhibition losses to Lenoir-Rhyne and Kentucky Wesleyan.

Consider them gone. For the first time in a long time, fans were leaving early on a school night because the Cards had built too commanding of a lead — not the other way around.

They needed only 12 minutes and some change to make more 3-pointers (14) than they did during both of last season’s exhibitions combined (13). They finished with 24, which would have been a new program record had this one counted for real.

By the 17:19 mark of the second half, they had tallied more assists (21) than they did in both of those games. They finished with 27 on 40 made field goals — seven off the program record.

Terrence Edwards Jr. led all scorers with 24 points. The fifth-year guard/forward transfer from James Madison, who as a senior was named the Sun Belt Conference’s Player of the Year, went 9 for 14 from the field and tied Reyne Smith with a game-high six 3s.

Louisville has one more exhibition at the Yum! Center on the docket, a 7 p.m. tipoff Oct. 28 against Spalding, before the 2024-25 regular season begins Nov. 4 against Morehead State.

This story will be updated.

Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.