Pat Kelsey opted to focus on the little things in the wake of Louisville basketball‘s lopsided loss at the hands of then-No. 23 Tennessee on Dec. 16.
“Believe it or not, the sun came up yesterday,” he told play-by-play announcer Paul Rogers during a Dec. 18 episode of his radio show. “I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to come up, but it did.”
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Kelsey had to call in during the show’s first segment. He was running late — lost track of time while debriefing with a member of his staff after a whale of a practice at the Planet Fitness Kueber Center.
“There’s no question in my mind and in my heart that this team — this Louisville Cardinals team — has a chance to be really, really special,” he said. “… The mentality that the guys had today — the aggressiveness, the chirpiness of practice — told me everything I needed to know about our team.”
Sure enough, UofL (10-2) bounced back with a 94-54 win over Montana over the weekend at the KFC Yum! Center. The vibes are all right entering Christmas break; but, if the goal is reaching the Final Four for the first time since winning it all in 2013, the Cards are going to have to find another gear against top-flight competition.
“You’ve got to be able to win games in different ways,” Kelsey told Rogers. “If it’s ugly and it’s a tractor pull, as I like to say — you know what a tractor pull is? (You’ve got to) grind. You’ve got to be able to win a game like that sometimes, and that’s a lesson that we have to learn.”
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It’s with that in mind that we look ahead to ACC play, beginning with a two-game West Coast road trip against California (9 p.m. Dec. 30) and Stanford (8 p.m. Jan. 2). After that, the biggest home matchup remaining on the schedule: a 7 p.m. tipoff Jan. 6 against reigning conference champion Duke.
The numbers say the ACC shouldn’t be the relative cakewalk it was during Kelsey’s first go-around. Louisville was one of 14 members ranked among the top 100 in the NET as of Dec. 19 — compared with half of the league finishing outside the top 100 last season.
Here are three questions facing the Cards as they prepare for the start of conference play:
Can Louisville basketball up its physicality?
Tennessee forward Jaylen Carey (23) is fouled by Louisville forward Kasean Pryor (7) during a college basketball game between Tennessee and Louisville held at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center in Knoxville, Tenn., on Dec. 16, 2025.
Tennessee and then-No. 23 Arkansas laid the blueprint for beating Louisville: punch the Cards in the mouth first and don’t let up the physicality.
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How does Kelsey plan to combat it? “You’ve got to fight fire with fire,” he told radio analyst Bob Valvano after the loss to the Volunteers — a game his team trailed for more than 37 minutes and by as many as 25 points.
UT outrebounded UofL, 35-30, and owned a 42-30 edge in paint points. The Razorbacks won the boards, 46-36, and were +18 in second-chance scoring, 27-9. Simply put: That’s not going to cut it in March.
Kelsey praised his players for eventually matching Tennessee’s physicality on the glass — albeit “too little, too late.” But it was hard for him to view that as a silver lining when he saw a letdown on the defensive end during the final 20 minutes, when the Vols averaged 1.441 points per possession on 58.3% shooting from the field and a 60% clip from 3-point range.
Four Louisville forwards, Kasean Pryor, Khani Rooths, Vangelis Zougris and Aly Khalifa, combined for only three points and failed to grab a rebound across 32 minutes of run in Knoxville. German big man Sananda Fru, meanwhile, tied his season low for boards (five) and was held to a season-low four points on 2-for-3 shooting in 28 minutes.
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Accordingly, Kelsey said he made it a point of emphasis to get these guys more involved during the Cards’ first practice after the loss.
“I tell them, first of all, ‘The one way you can get touches is to go get rebounds. The more rebounds you can get, those are passes to you,'” the coach told Rogers during his Dec. 18 radio show. “… In the pick and roll, we can get them the ball more on rolls.
“We have to get them the ball a little bit more on post-ups,” he continued, “either after the pick and roll or after some special-situation-type set plays. We can still play our normal cutting game even though the ball’s in the post. … They can go look to score, (and) we can also look to play with action out on the floor while the ball’s in the post — almost like you’re flipping our offense.”
His plan came to fruition (pun intended) during the win over Montana. Fru made his first nine shots en route to a season-high 18 points on a 9-for-11 clip. Keep an eye on how UofL implements these wrinkles into its offense moving forward — and whether it can fight fire with fire from the jump instead of having to play catch-up.
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Will Louisville basketball experience a defensive ‘movement’?
Dec 3, 2025; Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA; Arkansas Razorbacks forward Trevon Brazile (7) drives to the basket as Louisville Cardinals guard JÕVonne Hadley (1) defends during the first half at Bud Walton Arena. Mandatory Credit: Nelson Chenault-Imagn Images
During Louisville’s undefeated run through last January, Kelsey often spoke about a “movement” occurring among the members of his Year 1 roster — defensive ownership.
“It starts in the minds and hearts of each guy in a Louisville jersey,” the coach said at the time. “Getting stops matters, taking care of their assignment matters, picking up for a mistake of your teammate matters.
“Defense is an attitude; and our guys have been playing with that little bit of a chip on their shoulder for the better part of the last month and a half.”
Entering the 2025-26 campaign, Kelsey told reporters he hoped that mindset would be his team’s “stinking identity.” There have been flashes — see: neutral-site wins over Cincinnati and Indiana — but it hasn’t taken hold yet.
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Sooner rather than later would be nice. Going off KenPom.com‘s efficiency metric, the loss to Tennessee was the Cards’ fourth-worst defensive performance of Kelsey’s tenure (120.4).
In its first five games against high-major opponents, UofL has surrendered 80.4 points per (62nd percentile, according to CBBAnalytics.com) on a 51.1% effective field-goal percentage (74th percentile). Its problems range from lacking top-of-the-line perimeter stoppers like Chucky Hepburn and Terrence Edwards Jr., getting outmatched physically in the post and letting offensive slumps impact the other end of the court.
“That absolutely cannot happen,” Kelsey said.
Therefore, everyone needs to step up.
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How will Louisville basketball’s nonconference resume hold up come Selection Sunday?
Louisville Cardinals guard Mikel Brown Jr. (0) drove to the basket during the second half as the Louisville Cardinals hosted the Kentucky Wildcats at the KFC Yum! Center on Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. The Cardinals defeated the Wildcats 96-88.
Kelsey and his staff approached building Louisville’s nonconference schedule with a mindset of, “You can’t sharpen your teeth eating oatmeal.” In July, the coach told reporters he wanted those in charge of creating the 2026 NCAA Tournament bracket to know on Selection Sunday that the Cards “didn’t duck the smoke.”
“Whether it ends up being the best strategy in the world, I don’t know; but that’s what we decided,” he added. “Bring it.”
As of Dec. 20, however, KenPom considered the slate (+1.58, 134th) weaker than last year’s (+7.18, 38th).
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Sure, it was nice to sweep rivals Kentucky, Cincinnati, Indiana and Memphis by a combined margin of 53 points. But there were only two Quad 1 wins in the bunch — the Wildcats and the Hoosiers, who were on the fringe of the NET’s top 30 entering the home stretch of nonconference play. The Bearcats and the Tigers, meanwhile, were classified as Quad 3 opponents.
UofL dropped the aforementioned Quad 1 opportunities at Arkansas and at Tennessee by a combined margin of 30 points. Its six other wins thus far fell into Quad 4.
How will its resume hold up come March? The ACC has gotten better; but, as Kelsey & Co. learned last season, it would be unwise to assume a strong run through the conference means a favorable seed in the Big Dance.
Look on the bright side: This time last year, the Cards ranked 61st in the NET and owned a 2-5 record in Quad 1 and Quad 2 games. Now, they’re entering Christmas break sitting among the top 20 with 15 matchups of that variety still to come. Just don’t go around saying this schedule was way tougher — yet; the NET is updated daily.
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As of Dec. 20, Louisville was on track to play as many Quad 1 and Quad 2 games as it had under its belt entering last season’s ACC Tournament, 19.
Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville basketball, Pat Kelsey face questions ahead of ACC schedule
