In their first appearance under new head coach Pat Kelsey, the Louisville men’s basketball team delivered a commanding 111-59 victory over Bahamas Select on Tuesday night in the opening exhibition game of the Baha Mar Hoops Summer League.
“It was just good to play against somebody else,” Kelsey said after the game. “We’ve been beating up on each other for the last two months. To put the uniforms on for the first time and be under bright lights and play a game for real felt really good. I was proud of our guys. You look at the stat sheet in a game like that, it’s easy to start playing ‘me ball,’ but our guys didn’t do that. They continued to give up good shots for great shots, and I was proud of them.”
The Cardinals came out strong, scoring the first 13 points of the game. Fifth-year forward Kasean Pryor was instrumental in the early surge, netting back-to-back 3-pointers and contributing nine of those 13 points. Louisville hit five of its first eight shots in the contest.
UofL closed the first half on an 11-1 run, extending their lead to 29 points. Pryor had 14 points at halftime, while junior guard Koren Johnson added 13. The Cardinals dished out 20 team assists on 23 made baskets in the first half alone.
Louisville maintained their dominance in the second half. The Cardinals used a 13-2 run between the 15:37 and 10:03 marks to go up by 42 points, highlighted by three 3-pointers from freshman Khani Rooths, senior Reyne Smith, and fifth-year senior Terrence Edwards Jr.
The Cards extended their lead to as much as 55 points in the closing minutes. They shared the ball effectively, with seven players finishing in double figures: Pryor, Rooths, Smith, Edwards Jr., Aboubacar Traore, Koren Johnson, and J’Vonne Hadley.
Louisville shot 50.6% from the floor and 42.6% from downtown, making 20 shots from beyond the arc. They recorded 38 assists on 43 field goals.
Hadley led the scoring for the Cardinals with 18 points, shooting 8-of-10 from the field.
The Cardinals will conclude their foreign tour in the Bahamas with their second and final exhibition game on Thursday at noon ET against the University of Calgary Dinos in Nassau. The game will be broadcast on radio on 93.9 The Ville and streamed on the Floyd Street Media YouTube channel.
