What Pat Kelsey, Louisville Players Said After 90-82 Exhibition Loss vs. Kansas

(Opening Statement)

“First of all, I want to say what a great atmosphere it was for a preseason game in October. Louisville versus Kansas in October doesn’t happen very often. I thought the city responded, our students responded, and our fans responded. There was a great, great buzz in the arena. It was the first time that either team suited up against anyone other than themselves since June. That’s what these early games and scrimmages are all about – finding things out about your team – the strengths and the weaknesses and things that need to be fixed. Playing a preseason game against a Division III team like we did last year, you don’t get the answers that you need. We have some tonight and we now have a great teaching tool that I am excited to dive into right away. Give Kansas a lot of credit. Darryn Peterson, in the first half, was sensational. Our guys responded in the second half, and I thought they played better. Technically, I thought we played better when you look at certain statistics that speak to effort and rebounding percentage was very high. There weren’t a ton of positives, but without question that was one of them. We got 45 percent of our misses back and they got 24 percent of their misses back. In that flurry that they had in the first half, they made some really tough shots. I thought we let our offense affect our defense a little bit. When they went on that flurry, we had some really bad turnovers. In that four-minute flurry, I think they were plus-13. I don’t think our guys responded great in that period. Halftime was awesome because before I even walked in there, I heard a ton of voices and I kind of stayed outside and listened a little bit. Those guys were saying everything I was going to say. The same thing happened after the game, when I walked in, they were all talking.  I let those guys even continue to talk even when I was in the room and they said all the right things. We will have a great response today, I know those guys will learn from it.”

(About the value of playing a team like Kansas in the preseason)

“It is huge and we will use it as a tool to get better. I told the guys, that is one thing they don’t have to worry about which is our team is going to be really, really good. We will get better because of the things we learned from the tapes. We will look back at this and be able to be good really quick.”

(On how preseason expectations impacted the team)

"I don't know if the way we played in the first half had anything to do with the preseason expectations. The first half was Kansas playing really well. We didn't play that well but that is because of Kansas. We weren't very efficient on offense. You credit their defense for that. I'll have to watch the tape, but everyone knows this - we're a very, very good shooting team and we had a very poor shooting night. Again, I have to watch the tape, but a lot of those looks were really good. We have a bunch of guys that shoot over 40 percent from three and just didn't have a good shooting night tonight. You can't always control whether the ball goes in or not, but what you can control is making sound decisions with the ball. I think we had 20 turnovers and we can't do that against a good team.  Many of them were careless, uncharacteristic, the kind of mistakes and turnovers that we don't normally make and things that can be fixed and cleaned up. Credit Kansas. I thought they played really well and we learned a lot about our team from this.”

Guard/Forward J'Vonne Hadley and Guard Ryan Conwell

(On the biggest takeaway after facing a top-25 opponent)

J’Vonne Hadley, 6th Yr., G

“We’re grateful for everything – grateful to play Kansas, grateful for all the fans who came out and supported us. It was a really good learning experience for us. We weren’t ourselves in the first half, the second half we played better. We weren’t ourselves in the first half intensity wise, both offensively and defensively. Offensively we were stagnant… we weren’t ourselves and I know we’ll clean it up.”

Ryan Conwell, Sr., G

“First and foremost, all glory to God. Like J’Vonne said, we’re thankful to be able to play this game and be in this position. I would say we were not being as disruptive as we needed to be and just allowing them to flow in their offense and allowing missed shots to dictate our defense - it’s stuff we’re going to clean up. It’s just the beginning of something good, so we’ve just got to stay with it.”

(How much will this help you push forward and get ready for the season?)

J’Vonne Hadley, Sr., G

“It’s going to help us a lot. Like I said, it’s a learning experience, especially playing another top-25 team early. Obviously they’re a really talented team and so are we. It was a really good test early. We’re a film hungry team. The coaching staff’s probably not going to sleep, they’ll watch everything. We’re going to watch it with them, learn from everything. We’re a really talented team. You guys will see it when it all comes together for sure. I mentioned to the team in the locker room, I know everybody else – Ali (Khalifa) and Kobe (Rodgers) and all the guys who were here last year – we talked about how that happened last year. We got punched early too – it happened last year. We’ll be alright. All we’ve got to do is learn, fix ourselves, look at ourselves in the mirror and we’ll be alright.”

(Are the 20 team turnovers a byproduct of the team playing together for the first time aside from practice?)

Ryan Conwell, Sr., G

“I would say it’s a little bit of that and just first game jitters, but at the end of the day, we just know that we have to be cleaner and take care of the ball if we want to win these games