How it happened: No. 11 Louisville beat down by No. 20 Tennessee, 83-62
No. 11 Louisville arrived in Knoxville coming off its best shooting performance of the season, and left coming off one of its worst after the 83-62 loss at No. 20 Tennessee.
Louisville’s 62 points are the lowest by a Pat Kesley-coached team since last March’s ACC Championship Game against Duke.
The Cardinals were without star freshman point guard Mikel Brown Jr, who was revealed to be a game-time decision just 15 minutes before tip-off. He missed Tuesday night’s contest with a lingering back issue, but did dress and go through warmups.
From the jump ball, Tennessee was the more physically dominant team, winning the game with its toughness and interior presence on both ends of the floor. The Vols won the rebounding battle 35 to 30, 10 of which were offensive.
Starting in Brown’s place was sophomore combo guard Adrian Wooley, who scored Louisville’s first five points and had his most complete performance of the season in the loss. Wooley’s 19 points are a season-high
Ryan Conwell led the U of L with 22 points and five rebounds. J’Vonne Hadley didn’t score in the first half, but still ended up finishing with nine points on four field goals. Other than Conwell, Wooley, and Hadley, the Cardinals couldn’t find any other significant contributors. That fact alone would have been enough for the Vols to come away with the win.
Louisville started cold from the field, going 4-of-16 (25%) from deep in the first half, and its usual sharpshooter, Isaac McKneely, was 0-of-his-first-6 from beyond the arc, and His first made long ball since the IU game came with 3:40 to go and the Cards trailed by 24.
As a team, the Cards finished shooting a lowly 37.9 percent from the field, 20.6 percent on 3s, and 61.1 percent from the charity stripe. Both the Cardinals’ 3-point percentage and free-throw percentage were the lowest marks of the season. Louisville shot 37.5 percent from the floor against Cincinnati and won 74-64.
In the second half, Tennessee was able to spread out Louisville’s defense and pick it apart once the Cards started putting two on the ball.
Volunteer five-star freshman Nate Ament had 13 points and seven rebounds, and senior point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie had a game-high 23 points and was a perfect 10-of-10 from the stripe. Tennessee made the same amount of 3s as the Cards (7), but shot a much better 55 percent overall.
Three shot clock violations and 16 turnovers were significant indicators of a Louisville offense that was bound to stall. Tennessee’s bench outscored Louisville by a staggering 31 points.
Kelsey and the Cards drop to 9-2 and now play Montana this Saturday, before heading out west for the first ACC contests of the season at California and Stanford.
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