Louisville listens, smokes Michigan
Louisville men’s basketball listened to Michigan, but waited to respond until tipoff. The Cardinals heard some of the fourth-ranked Wolverines comments in a pregame press conference yesterday, but didn’t want to answer until their play could speak for themselves.
Top-ranked Louisville defeated Michigan 58-43 at the KFC Yum! Center Dec. 3 as part of the Big Ten/ACC Challenge. Jordan Nwora scored a game-high 22 points and added 12 rebounds for Louisville. Steven Enoch posted a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
“We had heard they wanted some smoke yesterday, so they got some smoke and got smoked,” Nwora said. “That’s what happens. They were talking and we were able to quiet it up a little bit.”
Nwora and his teammates were shown Michigan’s pregame press conference, but didn’t want to take to Twitter as a response.
“It’s all fun and games, it’s good to see,” Nwora said. “ None of us are going to talk before a game. We are going to settle it on the court and that’s what we did. They said they wanted some smoke, so we went out there and gave it to them.”
Graduate transfer Lamarr Kimble gave context to Michigan’s comments.
“When someone says ‘we want all the smoke’ it’s basically they are ready for anything,” Kimble said. “They are ready to take us on. Michigan players were saying they were ready to face us and whatever we had to bring, they were going to get past that and get the win. They were talking into existence a win. We aren’t about that here, we are about getting on the floor and playing for 40 minutes.”
