Louisville basketball lost to the Duke Blue Devils in dominant fashion last night, suffering its worst loss since 2023. The Cards fell to the Blue Devils 83-52 as Duke dominated the second half yet again, outscoring the Cardinals by 21 points.
Louisville fans entered the game expecting the Cardinals to at least play the game close, and in the first half, they were holding their own for most of the time. However, Duke ended the half on a 13-3 run, and after that, Louisville just fell apart. A big reason many Cardinals fans thought this game would be different than the first game between these two top-25 teams was that the Cardinals' starting point guard, Mikel Brown Jr., was active.
However, Brown’s night was anything but memorable for Louisville. In fact, he made a mark in the Cardinals' record books, but unfortunately, not in a good way.
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Mikel Brown Jr.’s off night reached historic levels in Louisville's loss
There wasn't a lot of positivity last night in the Cardinals' 31-point loss, and one stat that sums it up comes from the Cardinals' former 5-star shooting percentage.
Last night, Brown shot 1-of-13 from the field and 1-of-7 from beyond the arc. Brown’s night was one to forget to say the least, as his 7.7-percent shooting percentage from the field is the worst shooting percentage from the floor for a Cardinals player since 2000 with a minimum of 12 attempts, per ESPN.
While Brown is in the record books for the wrong reason, the former 5-star impacts the floor in many ways. This team is much better with him on the floor than off the floor, and it is crucial for him to just move on and forget this game ever happened.
Brown is, without a doubt, one of the top point guards in college basketball. The 6-foot-5, 190-pound guard is a projected lottery pick for a reason, and all stars have their fair share of bad performances. He averages the second most points on the team with 16.1 points and averages a team high 5.1 assists per game.
He is coming off a long injury that kept him out for eight games over 42 days, and in his return, the former 5-star recruit led Louisville to a win over Virginia Tech, dropping a team-high 20 points and 6 assists while shooting 64 percent from the field and 50 percent from downtown.
Elite players like Brown know how to forget performances like these and usually have a massive bounce-back game following a poor performance like last night. The Cardinals face SMU this Saturday inside the KFC Yum! Center at 2 p.m. local time, and the fans should expect to see a dominant performance from Brown.
For all the latest on Louisville basketball's 2025-26 season and recruiting, stay tuned.