Louie The Card Louisville vs. Virginia Tech 2-28-2023 Photo by William Caudill, TheCrunchZone.com

Cards Look to Maintain Momentum at Virginia

Mark BlankenbakerJanuary 3, 2025

Louisville men’s basketball heads into its second ACC road game of the year to take on the Virginia Cavaliers in Charlottesville, Va. on Saturday afternoon. The 4 p.m. game will be broadcast on ACC Network.

Both programs won their most recent league contest with Louisville beating North Carolina 83-70 on New Year’s Day after Virginia beat NC State 70-67 the day prior.

Head coach Pat Kelsey has never faced the Hoos in his career. Louisville is 5-24 all-time against Virginia and has not bested the Cavaliers since Feb. 9, 2020. The Cardinals last won a game in Charlottesville on Feb. 17, 1990, its lone away victory in the series.

Current redshirt center Aly Khalifa is up against his former head coach for the second time now this season. Virginia’s Ron Sanchez coached Khalifa at Charlotte for two seasons before he played for current Kentucky head coach Mark Pope at BYU.
Louisville’s five losses have all come to teams now ranked in the AP Top 25: No. 1 Tennessee, No. 4 Duke, No. 10 Kentucky, No. 12 Oklahoma and No. 24 Ole Miss. As of Jan. 2, those teams are a combined 59-6.
Against North Carolina on Jan. 1, Chucky Hepburn made 16 free throws, tying the program record for free throws made in a single game.
Louisville played five ranked opponents before the New Year. The Cardinals have the 13th best strength of schedule according to KenPom as of Jan. 2..
As of Jan.2, Louisville is eighth in the country in 3-point attempts per game (32.0), 39th in free throw attempts per game (23.7) and 50th in free throws made per game (16.9) .
As of Jan. 2, Chucky Hepburn is 12th in the country in steals per game at 2.57 and sixth in total steals with 36. Reyne Smith is second in the country total 3-point attempts (128), sixth in total 3-pointers made (48) and 14th in 3-pointers per game at 3.43.
Sophomore forward James Scott is ninth in the country in dunks as of Jan. 2 with 27 on the year, according to Bart Torvik. He leads the ACC in that category.
Senior guard Reyne Smith was named ACC Player of the Week on Dec. 23 for his 27-point performance at Florida State. It was just the third time in the program’s 11 years in the ACC that Louisville has had multiple ACC Player of the Week awards as Chucky Hepburn also earned that title on Dec. 2.
Against Florida State on Dec. 21, Chucky Hepburn and Terrence Edwards Jr. both logged eight assists apiece; it was the first Louisville game to have two Cardinals log at least eight assists each in the same game since Peyton Siva and Gorgui Deng both had eight against Syracuse in the 2013 Big East Tournament championship game.
Louisville’s 89-61 victory over No. 14/15 Indiana in the quarterfinals of the Battle 4 Atlantis was Louisville’s first win over a ranked team since beating No. 19/20 Virginia Tech 73-71 on Jan. 6, 2021. It’s the highest ranked opponent the Cards have beat since beating No. 3 Duke 79-73 on Jan. 18, 2020.
In the win over Indiana, UofL’s Chucky Hepburn logged 16 points, 10 assists and seven steals. He’s the first DI player with at least those marks since Markquis Nowell of Kansas State did it against West Virginia with 23 points on Dec. 31, 2022.