Both halves of a premier college basketball rivalry enter new eras ahead of the 2024-25 season as Louisville and Kentucky embark on the coaching tenures of Pat Kelsey and Mark Pope, respectively.
The changes in leadership breathe new life into the programs after the Cardinals struggled through arguably the worst two-year stretch of basketball in their history and the Wildcats continuously stumbled out of the NCAA Tournament in the latter years of the legendary John Calipari era.
While there is a need for immediate success at both schools, Kelsey faces the added pressure of pulling Louisville out of the ACC’s basement and reversing its recent fortunes against Kentucky. The Cardinals are just 3-13 against their intra-state rival in the last 16 meetings, and they lost both of the last two meetings by at least 19 points. Turning the tides in the series could be a challenge if Kentucky’s hire proves to be as astute as Kelsey made it out to be.
“I just know he’s a phenomenal coach,” Kelsey said of Pope, who built BYU and Utah Valley into perennial winning programs. “He’s had a ton of success at BYU, and I have the utmost respect for him.”
Louisville’s last win over Kentucky came during the pandemic-impacted 2020-21 season when the Cardinals squeaked out a 62-59 victory. That was two coaching changes ago for the proud program, which has yet to find sustained success since Rick Pitino departed from the school.
“It’s been mentioned to me a couple of times that it’s a pretty big rivalry,” Kelsey said, tongue-in-cheek. “They say it kind of matters around here a little bit. I gotta write that down real quick. Rivalries are what makes college sports great. It’s one of the things that’s great about collegiate sports. I grew up in Cincinnati, and Cincinnati and Xavier were huge, huge rivals. Obviously, Louisville-Kentucky is like that on steroids.
“Skip (Prosser) used to say all the time when he was at Xavier early on and he was just taking on the program and building it — and I think Cincinnati had won several in a row — he kind of said, ‘Man, unless you win one every once in a while, it kind of stops being a rivalry.’ That’s the deal.”
Kelsey built the nation’s No. 26-ranked transfer class this offseason and could use that immediate-impact talent influx to find success right out of the gate. Competing at the sport’s highest level is an expectation at Louisville, and Kelsey is a proven winner who guided Charleston to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances. With greater resources at his disposal, perhaps he can pull the Cardinals out of a hole after the team won a combined 12 games over the last two years.
