Louisville will get its second measuring-stick game of the young season Wednesday when the Cardinals square off against No. 14 Indiana in the opening round of the Battle 4 Atlantis at Paradise Island, Bahamas.
The two schools, separated by just 100 miles, will play each other in a neutral-site early season tournament for the second straight year. Last season, the Hoosiers used a 13-2 run over the final 3:38 to pull out a 74-66 win in the third-place game in the Empire Classic in New York.
The Cardinals (3-1) have won two straight since losing to then-No. 12 Tennessee 77-55. The last time they were two games over .500 came in late January 2022. Louisville won at home Friday, beating Winthrop 76-61 despite a season-high 20 turnovers.
Coach Pat Kelsey employs a balanced attack and rotates several players throughout the game. No player averages more than 27.3 minutes per game, and five average 10 or more points per game. Louisville’s top two scorers, guard Reyne Smith (14.8 points per game) and forward Kasean Pryor (12.8), have yet to start a game.
This will be the second trip to the Bahamas for Kelsey’s Cardinals. The team played in the Baha Mar Hoops Summer League and registered two blowout victories.
After the Cardinals beat Winthrop on Friday, the first-year Louisville coach said his squad has potential but still needs work. That said, he added he’s seen his team, which returned only one walk-on from last season’s 8-24 team, show significant growth.
“All these guys come from parts all over the place, from different programs that have different terminology,” Kelsey said. “Basketball is a universal language, but everybody calls something something different. I think now they’re sort of getting in the groove where they really, really know conceptually and from a terminology standpoint exactly what we do.”
The Hoosiers (4-0) did not need the wholesale roster changes Louisville required in the transfer portal as coach Mike Woodson had three starters return from last season. Forward Mackenzie Mgbako, who started all 33 games as a freshman in 2023-24, leads Indiana with 18.8 points a game. Myles Rice, a guard who played at Washington State last season, ranks second with 14.8 points.
Indiana last played on Thursday, beating UNC Greensboro 69-58. The Hoosiers jumped out to a 17-3 lead, but the Spartans rallied to tie the score at 40 just four minutes into the second half before Woodson’s team pulled away for good.
“We’ve got to go and clean this game up before I start thinking about the Bahamas,” Woodson said after the win.
Despite the vastly different roster from last season, Louisville will have some experience playing against the Hoosiers. Starting point guard Chucky Hepburn played the previous three seasons for Wisconsin and earned All-Defensive Team honors in the Big Ten last season. In two games last season against Indiana, he scored 21 points, grabbed eight rebounds, dished out eight assists and registered five steals.
–Field Level Media
