Pat Kelsey thinks his Louisville team defeated a national title contender in Kentucky

We know the circumstances surrounding Louisville‘s win over Kentucky and the history behind the rivalry — three wins for the Cardinals dating back to 2009 and zero since 2020 for a half-decade gap. The in-state bragging rights speak for themselves.

But Pat Kelsey didn’t dislocate his finger during the postgame celebration of the 96-88 win over the Wildcats just because it was a personal monkey to get off his back as a second-year coach at UofL.

“There’s so much adrenaline going on in my body right now, I didn’t feel anything,” Kelsey said at the podium, showing off his splinted finger that was “90 degrees” after catching his hand in the curtain dividing the two practice courts. “… Doc was right there, and he came over and yanked that sucker right back in place.”

Pat Kelsey dislocated his finger pregame. Says it was at a 90 degree angle but had their trainer pop it back in for him:

“What I tell my players all the time – rub a lil dirt on it” pic.twitter.com/KgKM3nSE0g

— Maggie Davis (@MaggieDavisTV) November 12, 2025

He was celebrating to that level because he’s confident his team beat a legitimate national title contender — which, in turn, suggests his team is also very much in the conversation.

Iron sharpened iron at the KFC Yum! Center on Tuesday, with the Cardinals leaving that matchup just a bit sharper in the eight-point win.

“I want to credit Coach (Mark) Pope and his team and the program they are building there, I firmly believe that his team is a national title contender,” Kelsey said after the game. “And I believe that to be the case for our team, as well.”

Kelsey appreciated that it was a clean head-to-head battle without dust-ups and technicals taking away from the on-court product — and, of course, that his team came out on top.

He’s proud that of so many fun moments in the rivalry’s history, he can claim one himself.

“It was a big-time college atmosphere, two really good teams competing at a very high level, it was just genuine competition,” Kelsey said. “There wasn’t any extracurricular stuff, it was just good old-fashioned loose balls, hard screens, and dudes playing their butts off. It’s a great rivalry, it’s one of the greatest rivalries in all of collegiate sports, and this was another edition of that.”

The Louisville coach didn’t love how things went in Lexington a year ago, saying it was his job as the leader of the program to end that losing streak — and the next 365 days would be spent figuring out how to do that.

Kelsey doubled down on that statement, saying the Cardinals hadn’t held up their end of the bargain in the greatest rivalry in college basketball. That changed on Tuesday.

“Last year I said that. I think I said it before the game and I said it in the press conference after the game, because I meant it,” Kelsey said. “Maybe it put a little bit more pressure on us, I don’t know, but the late great Skip Prosser, who was the head coach at Xavier and he was my college coach, when he got the job at Xavier, the Cincinnati-Xavier rivalry had gone Cincinnati’s favor for quite a bit. And Coach made the comment, ‘It ceases to be a rivalry unless you win one every once in a while.’

“And I said that because I mean it, and we were able to get one tonight, so it feels good.”

The same cannot be said for the Wildcats — none of this feels good here in Lexington.

Maybe we can set up the rematch for, say, April in Indianapolis?