Hello, smashmouth Louisville basketball.
The Cardinals didn’t look anything like a team desperate to launch 3s on Wednesday night. In fact, Louisville’s 13 attempts from behind the arc against Mercyhurst were easily the fewest of the Pat Kelsey era, exhibition or regular season. The previous low was 18 last season against Baylor.
That alone told the story. Louisville made just two 3s, and it didn’t hit its first one until freshman guard Isaac Ellis drilled one with 11:51 left in the second half.
This was a different kind of night in the Yum! Center, one built on force, paint touches and physicality instead of perimeter volume.
The first half was messy. Louisville went into the locker room with 10 turnovers and only eight assists, a rough spell fueled by sluggish off-ball movement and shaky interior passing. Kelsey didn’t like what he saw, but he liked the response.
"We'll get better, we're really good offensively, just didn't play well tonight," said Kelsey afterward. "I thought they responded."
That response started immediately after halftime. Louisville went right to Flory Bidunga on back-to-back possessions, and he finished both with dunks.
From there, the Cards kept feeding him, and Bidunga brought a different edge to the game. He scored 10 of his 12 second-half points in the opening five minutes and gave Louisville the kind of forceful presence it was looking for.
"I thought our second half, the way we came out of the locker room, I really challenged Flory at halftime; I thought he came out and really set the tone for us," Kelsey added.
Bidunga finished his home debut with 19 points and nine rebounds in 26 minutes. It wasn’t smooth from the jump. He looked hesitant early and gave it away four times, but Louisville kept leaning into him and let his physicality take over.
The Cardinals also piled up 56 points in the paint, the most of the Kelsey era. That came from a clear plan: attack the rim, get the ball inside and make the game ugly if needed. Louisville did that with purpose, and by the end of the night it had dragged Mercyhurst into a game the Lakers couldn’t control.
The numbers inside were emphatic. Louisville finished 16-for-24 on layups and 4-for-5 on dunks. It was not pretty at times, but it was effective, and the second half turned into a grind that wore Mercyhurst down.
Seth Trimble and Isaac Ellis handled point guard duties for stretches while Jackson Shelstad, who scored 23 points and hit four 3s in the exhibition win over Kansas last week, never really found a rhythm. Most of the offense revolved around getting the bigs touches, which was exactly the kind of adjustment Louisville needed after a sluggish start.
"Just to stop being soft," Seth Trimble said when asked about Kelsey's halftime message. "Play with purpose, play with a passion. We were kinda out there going through the motions on the offensive end…we made the point to get the ball inside…then we started playing with purpose and intention."
The offensive adjustment mattered, but Louisville’s defensive floor mattered just as much. When the attack stalled, the Cardinals didn’t let it spill over to the other end.
"When you're 'blah' on offense, sometimes that affects your defense," said Kelsey. "And they didn't let that happen.
As ticked off that I was with not finishing around the rim or turning the ball over at halftime. Now looking at stats, we're guarding the crap out of them…like I said we're
more talented, we're bigger, stronger, more athletic, but guarding all that stuff and continuing to concentrate, I was really proud of their defensive effort."
That edge has been showing all through the two exhibitions. Louisville matched Kansas on the glass, then punished Mercyhurst on the boards with a 51-39 advantage. It was spread out, too: seven players had at least four rebounds, while Trimble grabbed seven and Adrian Wooley finished with five.
"There was just a huge emphasis over the last couple of days - really since June 5 - on our defense and on our rebounding. If you're playing UConn, the goal is probably to hold them to 1.1 points per possession.
When you're playing a team like this, that's not the goal…and we held them well below that. They finished at 0.57, 29 percent effective field goal percentage, and 24 percent offensive rebounding percentage for them - this is our defense."
Kelsey has also made changes behind the scenes. He’s handed the defensive reins to associate head coach John Andrzejek, who Kelsey now calls the head of his defensive room. Andrzejek has brought in a "completely new" pick-and-roll defense and system, and Kelsey said his team is beginning to buy in.
Sean Dixon is also a new voice, leading Louisville’s transition defense.
The buy-in showed up in the details against Mercyhurst. Guards worked on the defensive glass and trusted the rim protectors behind them.
Ball pressure made life harder for the Lakers. The bigs protected the lane, called out coverages and set the tone on screens.
Louisville may still be settling into this new identity, but the outline is already clear: this group can win with muscle, defense and a willingness to make the game a mess.
In Other News...
Louisville Showed A Clear Strength But One Problem Still Looms
Louisvilles scrimmage with Mercyhurst offered an early look at what this roster wants to be, and the clearest calling card was inside play. Flory Bidunga gave the Cardinals a steady source of scoring around the rim, while Obi Ekezie stood out on the defensive end as Louisville showed signs of having more length and activity in the frontcourt than it did a year ago.
Still, the same workout also hinted at the kind of issues that can disrupt a teams rhythm once the games count. Louisville piled up points in the paint, but the scrimmage came with too many turnovers and too many missed free throws, the sort of sloppiness that can erase a size advantage in a hurry. The defensive improvement was encouraging, but the next step is making sure the good stretches do not get undercut by avoidable mistakes. [Read more 🡒]
Louisville Awaits A Huge Pat Kelsey Recruiting Decision
Pat Kelsey has been working the 2027 class hard, and one of the biggest names on his board is five-star point guard Reese Alston. The Houston native has been a major target for Louisville as the Cardinals continue building out their future backcourt, and he has emerged as one of the more closely watched recruits in the cycle.
Alston is expected to make his college commitment on October 29, with LSU currently viewed as the favorite by prediction metrics. Louisville is still very much in the mix, though, which gives Kelsey and his staff a reason to keep pressing as the decision date approaches. For a program trying to stay aggressive on the recruiting trail, this is one worth watching closely. [Read more 🡒]
Florida States ACC Push Now Rests On One Huge QB Question
Week 8 offered another reminder of how much the ACCs season can still swing on quarterback play, with several league passers turning in performances that reshaped the conversation around the conference. The latest rankings of eight quarterbacks reflected that reality, mixing big individual outputs with the kind of week-to-week volatility that has defined the league so far, while the preview of Week 9 matchups set up another round of chances for the conferences top arms to separate themselves.
For Louisville and the rest of the ACC race, the larger picture is still taking shape around which quarterbacks can sustain that level when the schedule tightens. Florida States path in particular still seems tied to one major question under center, and with another loaded weekend on deck, the answer could say plenty about how the conference standings look by the time the dust settles. [Read more 🡒]