Louisville Humbled in Top-20 Showdown at Tennessee

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - Making the trek down to Rocky Top for a ranked matchup at Tennessee, the Louisville men's basketball program fell well short in the top-20 showdown, losing 83-62 on Tuesday night at Thompson-Boling Arena.

The No. 11 Cardinals (9-2, 0-0 ACC) fail to get revenge for their 22-point home loss last season at the hands of No. 20 Volunteers (8-3, 0-0 SEC). They also fall to 0-2 in true road games so far this season, as well as against teams currently ranked in the AP Poll.

The loss was partially due to not having Mikel Brown Jr. at their disposal. The star freshman point guard made the trip in an attempt to play through a lower back injury, but was ruled out just prior to tip-off.

Adrian Wooley earned the start in Brown's place, and finished with 19-point outing. Ryan Conwell also had a good night for Louisville with a game-high 22 points.

The issue for the Cardinals was that they could not get production out of anyone else on the floor. Conwell and Wooley combined to shoot 13-of-32, while the rest of the team was just 9-of-26. In fact, Tennessee had 34 bench points while Louisville has just three.

This led to Louisville just shooting 37.9 percent from the floor and 7-of-34 on threes. They also had a season-low eight assists, and turned it over 16 times for 21 points the other way.

Then over on defense, UofL struggled mightily with UT's physicality - especially down low. The Vols not only shot 54.7 percent from the field, but 42 of their points came in the paint, and they out-rebounded Louisville 35-to-30. Adding insult to injury, they outshot the Cards from deep with a 7-of-18 mark on threes,

Louisville might have scored seven of the first 12 points of the game, but it was Tennessee who set the early tone. The Volunteers found a lot of early success with driving to the lane, using that to go on a 14-2 run and lead by as much as 10 just eight minutes into the game.

The Cardinals looked like they might get run out of the gym, but they didn't let it snowball to that. After UT shot 8-of-12 to open the contest, they went only 7-of-17 for the rest of the first half. Tennessee also went just 3-of-9 at the free throw line during this period.

Despite shooting just 9-of-25 for the half and committing nine turnovers for 10 points the other way, Louisville went into halftime trailing only 34-27. This was mainly thanks to a combined 23 points from Wooley and Conwell, with the other four points coming from Sananda Fru.

After halftime, despite not scoring more than six consecutive points, Tennessee blew the game wide open. On top of going 14-of-24 from the field in this half, the Volunteers also went 6-of-10 on three-pointers after going only 1-of-8 in the first half. Combine that with Louisville only shooting 13-of-33 in the second half, and they never truly threatened to mount a comeback.

Next up, Louisville will return home for a matchup against Montana. Tip-off against the Grizzlies is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 20 at 12:00 p.m. EST.

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