That The Ville has The basketball tournament Crowds at Freedom Hall rocking won’t just be nostalgia that lingers in the summer. Coach Pat Kelsey will have Louisville men’s basketball back to the level where going to games is fun again.
Where to set aside extra time to navigate traffic in KFC Yum! center it was mandatory to arrive on time. Where planning in-person events around home games for the Cardinals was common practice.
It’s okay to need a reminder of how it used to be.
The Ville TBT team, made up mostly of U of L alumni, is happily providing the flashbacks. They will play in the regional championship on Wednesday against Team DRC to try to become one of the last eight teams remaining.
A victory would mark a meeting with The familyteam of Kentucky alumni competing in their first TBT, in the quarterfinals.
They’re all grown men now, some even with families, but seeing Russ Smith doing the things that got him called “Russdiculous” by the former coach Rick Pitino goes back to when he was just a precocious child.
And seeing a lot of them – like Peyton Shiva It is Montrezl Harrell who played on the 2013 national championship team – in some ways, it’s like reliving that special season all over again.
This should be part of the draw for fans who claimed Saturday’s victory over Bellarmine alumni team UKnighted, the fourth biggest crowd in TBT history with 5,987 in attendance.
There is support for former players and there is a clamor for something to cheer for. Such moments have been few and far between for the Cards recently.
Louisville basketball hasn’t been Louisville basketball since the pandemic.
There was the patchwork 2020-21 season, in which they played just 20 games after several were postponed when players tested positive for COVID-19. And the Cards did not receive an invite to the NCAA tournament bubble in Indianapolis.
The 2021-22 season, in which then-coach Chris Mack left or was escorted out — whatever you want to call it — midway through the season. After starting 4-0 in ACC play, the Cards won just three games the rest of the season.
The first season under coach Kenny Payne went surprisingly bad quickly. Then the death of Hall of Famer Denny Crum, the program’s patriarch, added to the darkness.
Payne’s second season started out promising, but ended up sinking the program to a level of apathy that once seemed impossible for basketball in this city.
The Ville is a refreshing reminder that bad basketball is an aberration here, but since the 2019-20 season things have seemed somewhat normal.
The Cards reached No. 1 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll for just the third time in program history and reached No. 5 in February. They finished tied for second in the ACC standings and were one of the few schools considered serious contenders for the national title.
But, of course, that season ended with the cancellation of the ACC Tournament and the NCAA Tournament later following suit.
So technically, the 2019 season remains the last time U of L was in the NCAA tournament.
Maybe that will change this season; Maybe it will take Kelsey another year to get them back.
That’s the unknown part for Kelsey, who attended Monday’s TBT win over Sideline Cancer with her son Johnny after signing 13 new players to her roster.
What’s clear is that Kelsey has the energy and acumen to restore the buzz at KFC Yum! Center and return Louisville basketball to its traditional place in college basketball.
Contact sports columnist CL Brown at clbrown1@gannett.comfollow him on X in @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to your newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never lose one of your columnS.
This article originally appeared in the Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville Basketball: The Ville TBT Showcases the Energy Pat Kelsey Brings
