The Louisville men’s basketball head coach, Pat Kelsey, has proven to be a major game-changer for the programs he has been the head coach of. He seems to have wasted no time, as early signs in his tenure at Louisville show that the Cardinals' first-year head coach is already transforming this program into something special.
Louisville’s season may still have one game remaining in the regular season, but Kelsey's track record indicates that the Cardinals will climb to the No.1 seed in the ACC, and being crowned the ACC Tournament champions isn’t just possible, but is highly probable.
The program is in good hands with Kelsey in charge, and if the trend of his long win streaks means anything, it might just be a matter of time before the Cardinals are hoisting an ACC championship trophy.
Pat Kelsey and Louisville Basketball is a championship formula in the making
Pat Kelsey has made an immediate impact on the Louisville basketball program, as the program was last in the ACC last year with an embarrassing 3-17 record in conference play and 8-24 overall. The Cardinals started 6-5 but rattled off 10 straight before their loss to Georgia Tech, and now secured eight more straight, improving to 24-6 and have won 18 of their last 19.
Louisville basketball's dominant win streak seems to be a pattern that Pat Kelsey has shown throughout his coaching career. Kelsey’s track records show that long win streaks have been a staple of his teams, and history shows that those streaks frequently lead to championships.
Kelsey was the head coach at Charleston and Winthrop before UofL, where he built a winning culture and flipped those schools completely around.
In Kelsey’s second season at Charleston, he led the Cougars to a historic 31-4 record, securing the program’s first CAA title since 2008. In that historic season, Kelsey led the Cougars on a 20-game win streak and placed Charleston in the top 25 for the first time in a long time.
Pat Kelsey also led the Winthrop Eagles to a 23-2 record, which included a school-record 21-game win streak, a Big South tournament title, and a trip to the NCAA Tournament.
Now, Kelsey was tasked with a similar setting with the Louisville Cardinals program, as UofL was seen struggling in recent years, but Kelsey winning 18 of 19 games and securing two massive win streaks could be a foreshadowing that the Cardinals are on pace to secure that ACC regular season title.
Pat Kelsey's history hints that when his team can secure long win streaks, he often tends to bring hardware to that program. The Cardinals have never won an ACC Tournament championship, and Kelsey's win streak hints at him wanting to etch his name in the program's history books yet again.
The Cardinals' biggest threat is Duke, but the Blue Devils still have to travel to UNC tomorrow night to take on the Tar Heels, and the Cardinals have to face Stanford at home.
The dominant win streak at Louisville is more than just a sign of good fortune; it reveals that this Cardinals program is on the right track. History suggests that Kelsey and the Cardinals' win streak has them set up for a ring ceremony, so Cardinals fans, get your popcorn because this team’s sky is the limit.