The Louisville basketball program’s inaugural season under Head Coach Kenny Payne is only two games away from its regular season close. The last two remaining games are tonight’s matchup against the Virginia Tech Hokies at 9:00 PM EST, live at the KFC Yum! Center and Saturday’s matchup against the Virginia Cavaliers in Charlottesville.
Kenny Payne has not played against Virginia Tech yet this season, so this will be a new set of x’s and o’s for him to prepare for. The last time these two teams met was nearly a year ago to the day on March 1, 2022. Virginia Tech coasted their way to an easy win with a final score of 75-43.
Mike Young’s Hokies team is currently 16-13 and 6-12 in conference play, so the chances Louisville has to make this game competitive are higher than most people might think. Each of the Cardinals’ wins have come against teams with less than stellar in-conference play records, barring the Clemson Tigers.
Western Kentucky currently has a 7-11 record in the Conference USA, Florida A&M has a 5-12 record in the SWAC, Georgia Tech has a 4-14 record in the ACC, and Clemson has the best record of them all with a 13-5 in-conference record. The Clemson victory came on a night in which the 2013 National Championship team was honored with a new banner, so it would have been difficult for anyone to have beaten the Cardinals that night.
Three wins over teams with below .500 in-conference records and one win over a much better team. However, their 4-25 overall record does not adequately reflect the growth and fight this team has shown over the season. If Louisville would have scored 12 more total points across five different games, their record would be 9-20 instead of 4-25.
9-20 is still below .500, but it moves the needle more in the right direction and shows just how close Louisville has been to winning so many more games than their record reflects. Barring a miraculous postseason run through the ACC Tournament, the end of Kenny Payne’s first season with the Cardinals is in sight.
And there is a whole lot of expectations on next season’s success because of a few recruits that Louisville has been rumored to be in on. The biggest one being four-star center Dennis Evans, who recently requested a release from his National Letter of Intent with the University of Minnesota and has been predicted by both Rivals.com and 247 Sports to come to The Ville.