Can Pat Kelsey revive Louisville basketball in 2024-25? These 5 games are key

In Pat Kelsey‘s grand vision, the Louisville men’s basketball rebuild he started in March will culminate in a tribute to the late Hall of Fame coach Denny Crum.

“When the time’s right and I feel like the revival is complete,” Kelsey told Crum’s wife, Susan, during a Sept. 17 event at the Frazier History Museum, “I’m going to call you and I’m going to ask for your permission to wear a red jacket for a game.”

Will Kelsey deliver that full-circle moment during Year 1 of his tenure? It depends on how the 49-year-old Cincinnati native defines success with the Cardinals coming off a dreadful 12-52 stretch under former coach Kenny Payne; because the bar is as low as it gets — just put a competitive product on the court and continue to galvanize a fan base desperate for a return to national prominence.

The thing is, neither Kelsey nor the members of his completely overhauled roster have shied away from the standards Crum set. Senior guard Chucky Hepburn, one of the 10 players who joined the team through the NCAA transfer portal, said they have ACC championship and national title aspirations.

“This is a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity, especially because a lot of us only have one year here,” added J’Vonne Hadley, a fifth-year guard. “The energy has been one of a kind.”

If that’s the mindset, maybe ending an NCAA Tournament drought dating back to 2019 won’t be enough for Kelsey to don a red jacket. But it’s a major hurdle to clear in making his dream a reality.

With that in mind, here’s a look at five games on U of L’s 2024-25 schedule that will be pivotal on its quest to reach March Madness while also serving as good barometers for where the program stands under Kelsey’s guidance:

vs. Tennessee (Nov. 9, KFC Yum! Center)

To describe the urgency with which Kelsey and his staff worked upon arriving at Louisville in the spring, assistant coach Brian Kloman compared the program to a Ferrari: “You better get in — and you better drive fast.”

Is an opening-weekend showdown with Tennessee at the KFC Yum! Center fast enough for you?

Make no mistake, this first installment of a home-and-home series will lose some of its intrigue if the Cards don’t beat Morehead State in Game 1 five days earlier; and, if Payne’s tenure taught us anything, it’s that no one should be taken lightly. But Kelsey’s mission is to restore standards, so the expectation should be that his team is talented enough to take care of business against a mid-major opponent going through a regime change and roster shakeup of its own.

If U of L does that and pulls off a home upset of the Volunteers, it would make an awfully strong case for cracking the top-25 polls.

Fresh off only the second trip to the Elite Eight in program history, Tennessee enters Year 10 under Rick Barnes as a consensus top-15 team in CBS Sports, ESPN and Fox Sports’ early rankings. It’ll ring in the 2024-25 campaign by hosting Gardner-Webb five days before facing the Cards, who hold a 12-8 advantage in a series dating back to 1913.

Barnes must replace SEC Player of the Year Dalton Knecht but has no shortage of weapons at his disposal, including senior guard Zakai Zeigler and the country’s 28th-best transfer class in the eyes of analytics guru Evan Miyakawa. And if there’s anyone who can slow down Kelsey’s fast-paced offense, it’s the Volunteers’ coach, whose teams have ranked among the top five in KenPom.com‘s adjusted defensive efficiency rating for the past four seasons.

In short, we’ll find out just how good Louisville is very quickly. It should enter this game feeling as if it has nothing to lose, and the atmosphere should be electric — during the aforementioned event at the Frazier, Kelsey said athletics director Josh Heird “promised” him the Yum! Center will be filled to the brim. Buckle up.

vs. Indiana (Nov. 27, Atlantis Paradise Island)

When the Cards played Indiana last fall in the Empire Classic, Payne went viral for saying Hoosiers coach Mike Woodson “tricked” him by switching to a 2-3 zone defense that powered a 74-66 comeback victory at Madison Square Garden.

It would behoove Kelsey to have a better showing when the cross-state rivals kick off the Bad Boy Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas. Again, the bar is low; but the stakes will be high at Atlantis Paradise Island. In addition to bragging rights, whoever moves to the winners bracket will in all likelihood be rewarded with another Quad 1 opportunity the next day against Gonzaga.

Indiana is on track for a spot in the preseason top-25 polls entering Year 4 under Woodson, who after going 19-14 in 2023-24 signed EvanMiya.com‘s eighth-best transfer haul — headlined by fifth-year center Oumar Ballo, a top-five player available in the cycle. Take note of how the Hoosiers fare in an Oct. 27 charity exhibition against Tennessee; that and a Nov. 16 home game against South Carolina are their biggest tests before facing Louisville.

The Cards have lost two straight to IU and trail 9-12 in the all-time series. Their last win against the Hoosiers came in 2017.

When U of L visited the Bahamas for a two-game exhibition tour over the summer, Kelsey said the team treated it as a dress rehearsal for the Battle 4 Atlantis. Will it translate to success on a big stage? We’ll see.

vs. Duke (Dec. 8, KFC Yum! Center)

How’s this for an ACC opener? Louisville begins conference play with its only shot at Duke during the regular season; and then there’s the subplot of the projected No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, freshman forward Cooper Flagg, taking the court at the Yum! Center.

It will be appointment viewing and a massive opportunity for Kelsey and the Cards to send a message to the rest of the league: We aren’t the same team you bowled over the past two seasons.

A loss won’t derail their ACC title hopes, but Payne’s 5-35 conference record will be a distant memory if they start 1-0.

The Blue Devils are a consensus top-10 squad, jockeying for position with archrival North Carolina atop the ACC, in the early rankings entering Year 3 under coach Jon Scheyer. They lost seven players from last season’s Elite Eight team to the portal, three of whom ranked among EvanMiya’s top 50, but reloaded with the country’s No. 1 high school recruiting class and the 14th-best transfer haul.

Flagg has been described as a generational talent, and we should know by this point in the season whether he’s truly in the running to become only the fourth freshman to be crowned the Naismith College Player of the Year, joining Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis and Zion Williamson. But he’s merely the largest piece of a puzzle that also includes three others USA TODAY projects to be drafted in the first round next year — freshmen Isaiah Evans and Khaman Maluach and sophomore Caleb Foster.

Having lost five straight in the series, U of L is 9-15 all time against Duke. Its last win came Feb. 27, 2021.

Both teams will be less than a week removed from important SEC/ACC Challenge matchups when they meet at the Yum! Center. The Cards host Ole Miss on Dec. 3, while the Blue Devils host Auburn on Dec. 4.

at Kentucky (Dec. 14, Rupp Arena)

It’s a new day in the Louisville-Kentucky rivalry, with both schools having weathered coaching changes during the same year for the first time since 1930.

Kelsey and Mark Pope have expressed mutual respect for each other during their honeymoon phases — sharing what the former likes to call “honor among thieves” — but should pull no punches when their teams battle at Rupp Arena.

Want to completely win over the fans? Beat your archrival in Year 1.

Pope helped win a national championship as a player at UK in 1996, so the significance of this game should not be lost on him. But one could make the case that this year’s matchup means far more for Kelsey, considering the Cards beat the Wildcats only three times during former coach John Calipari‘s 15 seasons in Lexington and have lost the past two meetings by an average of 21 points.

This is their chance to seize momentum and maybe hang onto it for a while. And perhaps there will be an extra chip on Kelsey’s shoulder — if, that is, he heard about a recent CBS Sports survey of his peers that favored Pope, 67% to 33%, in the question of who will be more successful over the next five years.

The game itself will be a reflection of college basketball’s new era. Both coaches had to build rosters from scratch, leaned heavily on veterans out of the portal and love to shoot 3-pointers. BYU ranked second in the country last season under Pope with 32 attempts per contest, while Charleston finished third under Kelsey with 30.6.

vs. North Carolina (Jan. 1, KFC Yum! Center)

This will be the tone-setter for the second half of the season: On New Year’s Day, the grind of ACC play sets in with North Carolina visiting the Yum! Center. And, as is the case with Duke, it’s Louisville’s only shot at the Tar Heels.

Better make it count.

Having won a regular-season conference championship and reached the Sweet 16 in Year 3 under Hubert Davis, UNC enters the 2024-25 campaign sitting as high as fourth on CBS Sports’ early rankings. The Tar Heels returned five of their top eight scorers from 2023-24, including All-American RJ Davis, and boast the No. 8 high school recruiting class in the country; which features two projected first-round NBA draft picks next year in Ian Jackson and Drake Powell.

The Cards are 7-20 all time against North Carolina and have lost the past five in a row.

Snapping that skid will be a tough task, but U of L must get it done at some point if Kelsey is to make the program a legitimate contender in the ACC. One of former coach Chris Mack‘s first signature wins came on the road against the Tar Heels; maybe his longtime friend and colleague can make it happen with a rowdy home crowd behind him.

Here’s a look at U of L’s complete 2024-25 schedule:

Louisville basketball nonconference schedule 2024-25

Note: Tipoff times and TV assignments are to be determined, unless noted otherwise.

Monday, Oct. 21: vs. Young Harris College (exhibition), 7 p.m., ACC Network Extra

Monday, Oct. 28: vs. Spalding (exhibition), 7 p.m., ACC Network Extra

Monday, Nov. 4: vs. Morehead State, 7 p.m., ACC Network Extra

Saturday. Nov. 9: vs. Tennessee, noon, ACC Network

Tuesday, Nov. 19: vs. Bellarmine, 7 p.m., ACC Network Extra

Friday, Nov. 22: vs. Winthrop, 7 p.m., ACC Network Extra

Wednesday, Nov. 27: vs. Indiana (Battle 4 Atlantis in Paradise, Bahamas), noon, ESPN

Thursday, Nov. 28: vs. Gonzaga or West Virginia (Battle 4 Atlantis in Paradise, Bahamas), either noon or 2:30 p.m., ESPN or ESPN2

Friday, Nov. 29: vs. TBD (Battle 4 Atlantis in Paradise, Bahamas)

Tuesday, Dec. 3: Ole Miss, 9 p.m., ACC Network

Wednesday, Dec. 11: vs. UTEP, 7 p.m., ACC Network Extra

Saturday, Dec. 14: at Kentucky

Saturday, Dec. 28: vs. EKU, noon, The CW

Louisville basketball ACC schedule 2024-25

Sunday, Dec. 8: vs. Duke, 6 p.m., ACC Network

Saturday, Dec. 21: at Florida State, 2 p.m., The CW

Wednesday, Jan. 1: vs. North Carolina, ACC Network

Saturday, Jan. 4: at Virginia, 4 p.m., ACC Network

Tuesday, Jan. 7: vs. Clemson, 7 p.m., either ESPN2 or ESPNU

Saturday, Jan. 11: at Pittsburgh, either ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU

Tuesday, Jan. 14: at Syracuse, 7 p.m., ACC Network

Saturday, Jan. 18: vs. Virginia, either ESPN or ESPN2

Tuesday, Jan. 21: at SMU, 9 p.m., ACC Network

Tuesday, Jan. 28: vs. Wake Forest, 7 p.m., ACC Network

Saturday, Feb. 1: at Georgia Tech, 3:45 p.m., The CW

Wednesday, Feb. 5: at Boston College, 7 p.m., ACC Network

Saturday, Feb. 8: vs. Miami

Wednesday, Feb. 12: at N.C. State, 7 p.m., either ESPN2 or ESPNU

Sunday, Feb. 16: at Notre Dame, 8 p.m., ACC Network

Saturday, Feb. 22: vs. Florida State, noon, The CW

Tuesday, Feb. 25: at Virginia Tech, 9 p.m., ACC Network

Saturday, March 1: vs. Pittsburgh, either ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU

Wednesday, March 5: vs. California, 9 p.m., ACC Network

Saturday, March 8: vs. Stanford, ESPNU

Tuesday, March 11, through Saturday, March 15: ACC Tournament (Spectrum Center, Charlotte, North Carolina)

Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville basketball schedule: Key games for Pat Kelsey in 2024-25