Brown: The Ville is preview of energy Pat Kelsey will bring back to Louisville basketball

That The Ville has The Basketball Tournament crowds at Freedom Hall rocking won’t just be nostalgia that stays in the summertime. Coach Pat Kelsey will have Louisville men’s basketball back to the level where going to games is fun again.

Where setting aside extra time to navigate the traffic at the KFC Yum! Center was a must to arrive on time. Where planning personal events around home games for the Cardinals was a common practice.

It’s OK to need a reminder of what it used to be like.

The Ville’s TBT team, made up mostly of U of L alumni, is happily providing the flashbacks. They will play in the regional championship Wednesday against Team DRC to try to become one of the last eight teams remaining.

A win would set up a meeting with La Familia, the Kentucky alumni team playing in its first TBT, in the quarterfinals.

They’re all grown men now, some even with families, but seeing Russ Smith doing the things that got him named “Russdiculous” by former coach Rick Pitino harkens back to when he was just a precocious kid.

And seeing the lot of them — like Peyton Siva and Montrezl Harrell who played on the 2013 national championship team — in a sense is like reliving that special season again.

That’s got to be part of the draw for the fans who made Saturday’s win over UKnighted, a team of Bellarmine alumni, the fourth-largest crowd in TBT history with 5,987 attending.

There’s support for former players, and then there’s clamoring for something to cheer about. Those moments have been few and far between for the Cards recently.

Louisville basketball hasn’t been Louisville basketball since the pandemic.

There was the patchwork 2020-21 season in which they played just 20 games after several were postponed when players tested positive for COVID-19. And the Cards did not get an invite to the NCAA Tournament bubble in Indianapolis.

The 2021-22 season where then-head coach Chris Mack quit or was escorted out — however you want to term it — midway through the season….

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/brown-ville-preview-energy-pat-091737396.html

Author : The Courier Journal

Publish date : 2024-07-24 09:17:37

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