Louisville coach Pat Kelsey during a college basketball game between Tennessee and Louisville held at Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center in Knoxville, Tenn., on Dec. 16, 2025. Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

What Louisville HC Pat Kelsey Said After 80-76 Loss vs. Stanford

Originally posted on Louisville Cardinals on SI
By Matthew McGavic | Last updated Jan 2, 2026 11:48 PM ET

The Louisville men's basketball program will not be coming back home from the West Coast unscathed.

Three days removed from blowing out Cal in Berkely for their ACC opener, the Cardinals could not replicate that result in their trip across the bay to face Stanford, falling 80-76 on Friday night. Louisville falls to 1-3 in true road games, and have not started 2-0 in ACC play since the 2021-22 season.

Louisville didn't have Mikel Brown Jr. at their disposal, and it showed. They shot just 43.3 percent from the floor and was only 6-of-27 on three-point attempts, with both their made and attempted threes being season-lows. Meanwhile, just a few days removed from scoring only 40 against Notre Dame, Stanford shot 46.3 percent from the field and 9-of-19 on threes.

Four Cardinals broke double figures, led by Ryan Conwell's 18 points - although he shot 6-for-21 and 2-of-14 on threes. Isaac McKneely had 17 points, Sananda Fru added 15 points and eight rebounds, and J'Vonne Hadley finished 14 points. On the other sideline, freshman Cardinal guard Ebuka Okorie had a game-high 28 points.

"Credit to Stanford and Kyle (Smith)," head coach Pat Kelsey said after the game. "They had a tough game the other night. Like all good teams and coaches do, he got his guys to respond. Obviously, because of our ranking and stuff like that, it's going to be a rock fight every single night.

"In the second half, they scored 45 points, they got 50 percent of their misses back on the offensive glass, for the game they scored it at 1.28 points per possession - which is really high. We scored it at 1.22, which is really high. But you can't go on the road and get beat on the glass like that in the second half, and not guard. I mean, it was a three point game with a minute left, and they drove right to the basket and got an easy layup. You know to be able to get get stops and defend at really high level to win on the road. Credit Stanford, they were better tonight."

Here's what Kelsey had to say following the loss: