The No. 6-ranked Louisville Cardinals dropped their first game of the 2025-26 men’s college basketball season on Wednesday night, losing on the road to the No. 25-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks, 89-80 – and Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey had something to say about his team after the game.
“It was unacceptable,” Kelsey said about Louisville’s play. “We pride ourselves on being great in the process every day, and we are. I was proud of our guys and their approach and how we practiced, but you do that every day, so you develop great habits so that when you’re in these environments, as we always say, you trust your training. On both ends of the ball, the things we value and that we hold our guys accountable for on the offensive and defensive end, it just wasn’t good enough, and then the rebounding and the undisciplined fouling. I just told them there’s a ton to clean up, and, as they know, we will clean all of it up.
“But the big thing is that we’ve got to have a great response to adversity. We haven’t faced a lot of that this year. It’s the first opportunity to respond in a big-time way, and we need to because we got to get ready for a really good Indiana team.”
The Cardinals shot 8-of-37 from beyond the arc (21.6%), committed 25 fouls compared to the Razorbacks’ 15 infractions, and allowed 14 offensive rebounds. Five Arkansas players posted double-digit points: Trevon Brazile, Darius Acuff Jr., Meleek Thomas, Malique Ewin and Billy Richmond III. The Wednesday night victory was Arkansas’ first against a ranked opponent this season.
Arkansas head coach John Calipari said he told his players prior to the game that if they can get “to the finish line,” he’ll get them “over the finish line.”
As for Louisville, it has played just three power-four schools in its first eight games. Granted, the Cardinals beat the now-No. 18 Kentucky Wildcats last month.
Ryan Conwell leads the scoring charge for Louisville, averaging 19.5 points per game, while shooting 41.9% from behind the arc; Mikel Brown Jr. is averaging 17.6 points and 5.6 assists per game; Sananda Fru is averaging 10.4 points, 6.1 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game.
Last season, Louisville finished the season 27-8 and earned a No. 8 seed in the NCAA Tournament before losing to Creighton in the opening round. This is its second season under Kelsey, who was previously the head coach at Charleston and Winthrop.
Louisville hosts No. 22 Indiana on Saturday.
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