Louisville basketball: Pat Kelsey on first loss to Tennessee Vols
Louisville Cardinals basketball coach Pat Kelsey discusses the disappointing loss to the Tennessee Volunteers Saturday at the KFC Yum! Center.
For the first time since 2017-18, we’re getting back-to-back seasons with cross-state rivals Louisville and Indiana squaring off on the basketball court.
The 22nd installment of the Cardinals vs. the Hoosiers will tip off at noon Wednesday in the opening game of the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis, an eight-team tournament at Atlantis Paradise Island resort in the Bahamas. First-year U of L head coach Pat Kelsey will go for win No. 1 against a high-major opponent at the helm; while IU’s Mike Woodson will try to notch his alma mater’s third consecutive victory in a series it leads 12-9 going back to 1921.
The past two times Louisville and Indiana played were missed opportunities for the Cards.
On Nov. 20, 2023, they were up 64-61 entering the final 4:23 of regulation at Madison Square Garden, in the Empire Classic’s third-place game, but allowed the Hoosiers to score 13 unanswered points en route to a 74-66 win. Kelsey’s predecessor, Kenny Payne, went viral afterward for saying Woodson, a former colleague of his on the New York Knicks staff, “tricked” him by using a zone defense to spark IU’s late surge.
On Dec. 8, 2018, at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in Bloomington, U of L got what was at that time a career-high 24 points from Jordan Nwora but had a game it controlled until the 8:36 mark of the second half slip away, 68-67. The loss snapped the Cards’ longest stretch of dominance in the series: a four-game winning streak that started in 2003.
As Louisville looks to regain momentum in the series, here’s a look back at five of its most memorable wins against Indiana:
No. 17 Louisville entered the 1984-85 season opener at No. 4 Indiana with an 0-3 all-time record against the Hoosiers in their home state.
That changed when Hall of Famer Denny Crum‘s team, using a 1-3-1 press defense, turned a nine-point deficit into a 75-64 upset of Hall of Famer Bob Knight’s squad at Assembly Hall in the programs’ first meeting since 1959.
Louisville native Manuel Forrest, a Moore High School graduate, led the way with what was at the time a career-high 18 points. Milt Wagner and Billy Thompson scored 17 and 12, respectively; and the Cards forced 25 turnovers.
On his way out of the visitor’s locker room, Crum’s longtime right-hand man, assistant coach Jerry Jones, joked with Forrest, telling him to hurry up because the Hoosiers would be “starting practice out there in a few minutes.”
U of L jumped to No. 6 in the AP Top 25 with the victory but fell out of it for the remainder of the season with consecutive losses to Oklahoma and Loyola to end the calendar year. It finished the campaign with a 19-18 record and fell to Tennessee in the NIT’s third-place game. IU went 19-14 and lost to UCLA in the NIT championship.
“Needless to say, I was pleased that we won,” Crum told reporters after beating the Hoosiers. “I probably would have been pleased had we lost because of the effort that we made. We played really hard. It’s not the easiest place to win in, I’m sure.”
Crum was right. Since that victory, Louisville is 0-3 in Bloomington.
No. 16 Louisville needed someone to step up during crunch time against No. 17 Indiana in front of what was at the time a record crowd of 19,493 at Freedom Hall. Wagner delivered.
“It was the night The Iceman returneth,” the late Courier Journal columnist Billy Reed wrote in his dispatch from the game.
In a breakthrough performance after missing most of the 1984-85 season due to a broken foot, Wagner scored 22 points, including the Cards’ final 10, to lead U of L past the Hoosiers, 65-63, and outduel All-American Steve Alford; who had a game-high 27.
The two-point win marked the first time Louisville had taken consecutive games in the series. And to this day, it’s the program’s smallest margin of victory against IU.
“He made the difference,” Knight said of Wagner.
“I knew it would come sooner or later,” Wagner added. “You can’t bring something back too quick, and I’d tried to come back too much.”
The Cards, of course, ended the 1985-86 season on a 17-game winning streak and brought home their second national championship. The Hoosiers went 21-8 and lost to Cleveland State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Channeling “Poltergeist,” former Courier Journal reporter George Rorrer’s lead from Louisville’s 81-69 comeback win against No. 5 Indiana at Freedom Hall succinctly summarized what the victory meant for the Cards.
“They’re BAAAAACK,” he wrote.
Having missed the 1987 NCAA Tournament and started the following campaign 1-2, U of L was looking for signs of life. It found that and then some when it went to the locker room trailing the Hoosiers 32-22 at halftime. The Cards outscored the reigning national champions 59-37 over the next 20 minutes.
Freshman LaBradford Smith, in only his fourth collegiate game, finished with 32 points on 8-for-13 shooting. The strong showing was a sign of things to come; the guard from Bay City, Texas, ranks eighth on Louisville’s career scoring list with 1,806 points and holds its all-time assists record with 713.
“Obviously, he played well,” Crum said of Smith. “He still made a couple of mistakes. One of the things I like about him is that he learns and seldom makes the same mistakes twice.”
The Cards went 24-11 in 1987-88 and fell to Oklahoma in the Sweet 16. IU went 19-10 and got bounced from the first round of March Madness.
In front of what was at the time a record crowd of 20,086 at Freedom Hall, No. 19 Indiana became the seventh opponent to build up a double-digit advantage over No. 8 Louisville during a first half — leading by as many as 16 points.
With the Cards trailing by eight at the intermission, John Belushi’s famous pep talk from “Animal House” aired in the arena. “Nothing’s over until we decide it is,” his character says in the clip. “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!”
“We know that, at some point, the surge is coming,” freshman Francisco Garcia said. “At some point in the game, we’re going to get that run where everything feels like it’s going our way. That’s why you play the game, for times like that.”
Rick Pitino‘s team, yet again, proved it was at its best showing up fashionably late to a party. Behind 23 points from Garcia, a career high at the time, U of L outscored the Hoosiers 60-33 during the second half and pushed what was the nation’s longest active winning streak to 15 games with a 95-76 victory.
“We flat-out got after it in the second half,” said Pitino, whose team closed on a 17-0 run, held IU without a field goal for the final 7:55 and scored 21 points off 20 forced turnovers. “I’m really proud of these guys. Their desire to win is tremendous.”
“They are very good — very aggressive,” added IU coach Mike Davis, who suffered what was at the time the most lopsided nonconference loss of his tenure in Bloomington. “You watch them on tape and, until you’re right there in the fire with them, you don’t know how demanding it is.”
Fans who had to tune in from home or at a bar were out of luck; the game was interrupted by CBS News’ coverage of the space shuttle Columbia disaster. WLKY aired a recording of it that night and the following morning.
Pitino’s team went on to tie the 1985-86 squad’s 17-game winning streak only to lose 59-58 at Saint Louis in its next contest. The Cards finished the season 25-7 and won the Conference USA Tournament but lost to Butler in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The Hoosiers went 21-13 and also exited March Madness in Round 2.
Louisville fans knew they had something special in Donovan Mitchell before the No. 6 Cards played No. 16 Indiana at the arena formerly known as Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, in front of a Hoosiers-leaning crowd of 18,824.
He actualized his potential and hit a new gear that New Year’s Eve.
Mitchell dropped a career-high 25 points in 33 minutes off the bench — a mark he would match or exceed four times during the final 20 games of his collegiate career — and Deng Adel added 17 as U of L notched its first three-game winning streak over IU with a 77-62 victory.
Coming off a 61-53 home loss to No. 12 Virginia, Pitino replaced Mitchell with freshman V.J. King in the starting lineup. The Hall of Famer told the future NBA All-Star he needed him to play “with no fear of missing.”
“If he’s 0 for 7,” he said, “I want him to go 0 for 10.”
Mitchell, finding the aggression he showcased as a freshman, proceeded to go 8 for 15 from the field and 4 for 8 from 3-point range. Seventeen of his points came during the second half; while 11 of Adel’s came during the first.
“We never had a complete game, and (Pitino) has been talking to us about that,” he said afterward. “To have this game, at this particular time, coming off that loss, is huge for us.”
“It’s been a bumpy road for both of us,” Adel added. “But (Saturday), we played free. We played confident.”
Louisville finished the season 25-9 and fell to Michigan in the second round of the NCAA Tournament; after which Mitchell was selected 13th overall in the NBA draft. Its Round 1 win over Jacksonville State is the program’s most recent March Madness victory.
Indiana went 18-16 in 2016-17 and lost in the first round of the NIT. Coach Tom Crean was fired after the campaign.
Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
