Chucky Hepburn, Reyne Smith Break Louisville Single-Game Records in Win at SMU

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Louisville men's basketball program's matchup at SMU on Tuesday night was a critical one. As the schedule currently shakes out, it was going to be their final opportunity to earn a Quadrant 1 win in the NET rankings - which plays a determining factor in seeding the NCAA Tournament. While Louisville had already positioned themselves firmly as a tournament team prior to the showdown, going into Dallas and making a statement was imperative.

Well, they did that and then some.

Louisville shot out of a cannon right from the opening tip, putting SMU on the ropes just a few minutes in, and didn't look back. By the time the clock hit double zeroes, the Cardinals had come out on top with a 98-73 victory over Mustangs, extending their longest winning streak in five years to nine-in-a-row.

The impressive performance no doubt had plenty of contributors from the winning side. James Scott and J'Vonne Hadley each scored 16 points. Khani Rooths came off the bench for 12 points. Despite shooting 2-for-13, Terrence Edwards Jr. didn't let that affect his defense, and finished at 26 in the plus/minus.

That being said, the blowout was fueled by a pair of Herculean efforts from Chucky Hepburn and Reyne Smith. How dominant were they? the duo each broke single-game school records that had been standing for over 20 years.

Hepburn made an impact scoring-wise on the night with 13 points, but his court vision and passing ability is what stood out. The 6-foot-2, 190-pound transfer point guard from Wisconsin finished with 16 of Louisville's 27 assists on the night.

Not only did it set a career-high for him, he broke the Louisville single-game record for assists by an individual player. The previous record was held by Francisco Garcia, when he dished out 15 assists back on Jan. 3, 2004 vs. Murray State.

"Chucky was amazing," head coach Pat Kelsey said after the game. "I mean, against a team like that, in that environment, 16 assists to two turnovers is ridiculous. He was just spraying the ball over the floor."

While Hepburn was serving as the conductor for the Louisville offense, Smith was serving as its engineer.

The 6-foot-2, 190-pound sharpshooting transfer from Charleston did what he did best, and exploded from beyond the arc. Smith finished with a game-high 30 points, shooting 10-18 from the field and an unbelievable 10-17 mark on three-point attempts.

Smith not only tied his career-high in made threes with this performance, he set the new single-game school records in both made and attempted three-pointers by an individual player. Taquan Dean previously held both, draining nine threes on Dec. 23, 2003 vs. VMI and attempting 17 on Mar. 26, 2005 vs. West Virginia in the Elite Eight.

"I've seen him get like this, and the rim just looks like the ocean," Kelsey said. "I see it when it gets in his eyes, and he was special tonight."

Towards the end of the matchup with the result well in hand and Smith on the precipice of breaking the record, Kelsey wanted to try and draw up plays just for him so that he could get over the hump.

"I usually don't care about that stuff, but we got in the huddle late, and whatever it was, three minutes left or something, and one of the assistants said it to me. ... So we tried to draw something up to get Reyne (open), and the guys wanted him to get it."

Breaking either record is a feat in and of itself. But just how rare was it for Hepburn and Smith to have the performances they did in the same game? As it turns out, pretty rare.

According to OptaSTATS, Louisville is the only Division I team this century to have a player with 10 or more threes and a player with 15 or more assists in the same game. In fact, the last NBA team to even do was the Golden State Warriors, when Klay Thompson had 10 threes and Steph Curry added 15 assists in a 127-120 win over the Houston Rockets on November 20, 2022.

Because of it, Louisville (15-5, 8-1 ACC) now sits on a nine-game winning streak, and hold sole possession of second place in the ACC behind Duke.

"They're just unbelievably process oriented," Kelsey said of his players. "Even when we struggled with injuries, and we struggled early on with some tough losses, those guys have been about business every day. I'm a big believer, and it's a big part of the culture of our program, that just try to be great at the next thing over and over again, stack great days together, and the results should take care of themselves."

(Photo of Reyne Smith, Chucky Hepburn: Raymond Carlin III - Imagn Images)

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