During Louisville City FC’s tenure in the USL Championship Soccer League, the team has found nothing but success. The club won back to back national championships in 2017 and 2018 and is tied for the most national titles in the league.  Louisville City set multiple league and club records this season. Most of them were good, but one was very sour. 

On the positive side, Louisville City matched the league record in wins with a record of 26-4-6, and set the league record for most wins at home going 16-0-1, the only loss came at the hands of Rhode Island FC with a final score of 5-2. With the combination of these two records, Louisville City also won its first USL Players Shield which is awarded to the best performing team in the regular season. The team also set the record for highest attendance at a regular season match, with over 14,000 fans coming out to support the Boys in Purple in a match against the Tampa Bay Rowdies during the annual Fill The Fam night. (Fill The Fam is an event put on by the team where ticket prices are lowered for an important match during the regular season.)  At the end of the regular season, Louisville City were heavy favorites to return to the championship match for the 5th time. However, the fans' dreams were crushed in the Semi Final match against Rhode Island FC.

The stage was set for a revenge game against RIFC but Rhode Island had other plans. RIFC put on a dominating performance and upset LCFC with a score of 3-0. This loss came as a devastating blow for the team not only because the team was heavy favorites to go on and win the championship, but also because it was the first time in franchise history the Louisville City did not make the Eastern Conference Finals. LCFC were short handed the whole season missing star winger Brian Ownby due to an ACL tear in the preseason; his presence was greatly missed this season and especially in the final game due to his ability to stay poised and be level headed no matter the score line. The head coach for Louisville City in a post match interview was quoted saying that this loss is going to sting for a long time and that we need to do better as a club. He also congratulated RIFC on their win saying that they deserved it. 

This loss marks an unfortunate new chapter in the league, but LCFC fans are in high spirits hoping the team can return to its dominant form next season and that the club can reach the very sought after third championship trophy.

The NCAA basketball program is right in the middle of the regular season and in that lies the Kentucky Wildcats and first year head coach Mark Pope. The Wildcats sit at a respectable record of 15-7 and a conference record of 4-6. The Wildcats started the season off hot when they beat (at the time) number six ranked Duke. They then got another statement win against the previously ranked number seven Gonzaga. These two statement wins set a  high bar for this Kentucky Wildcats team in this pivotal transition period for the organization.

The Wildcats went into conference play with a record of 11-2 only dropping games to unranked Clemson and Ohio State. Mark Pope spoke to the media after both losses and was confident in team improvement. He had this to say after the Clemson loss “I am more confident in this Kentucky team after the loss than I was before. There are some things to harp on, but there are also significant bright spots. The offense may have struggled, but the defensive side was an improvement throughout the game. Still, there is a lot to improve on obviously, but I have more confidence now in the team than I had before the loss to Clemson. Kentucky’s first conference game was against Florida who was ranked sixth. In the game, Kentucky put up a dominant performance and ended up winning the game 106-100, marking the first conference win in the Mark Pope era. Since that game, Kentucky has been up and down. Sometimes, they would come out in dominant fashion and others they would look dormant and had a lack of fight. These “lazy performances” led to a loss to unranked Georgia and a close battle against eleventh ranked Texas A&M. 

At the mid way point in the NCAA basketball season, Mark Pope has erased a lot of question marks that Kentucky fans had going into this season. This Wildcats team has proved that they are able to face adversity and overcome deficits. Mark Pope has also made it a goal of his to strengthen his bond with the fans themselves doing lots of community service and meet and greets around Lexington. A pivotal matchup is on the horizon for the Cats as they will take on the Arkansas Razorbacks headed by former Kentucky head coach John Calipari at home on February 1st.

Works Cited

Huff, Wyatt. “Mark Pope Says Clemson Loss Made Him More Confident in This 

Kentucky Team.” Kentucky Wildcats on SI, Sports Illustrated, 5 Dec. 2024, www.si.com/college/kentucky/men-s-basketball/mark-pope-says-clemson-loss-made-him-more-confident-in-this-kentucky-team. Accessed 29 Jan. 2025.

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Over the past three years, Louisville basketball has been in a bad spot in the darkest part of its history. Winning just a combined 12 games in the last two years under Kenny Payne out of 60. The lack of success weighed down the program and the fans who craved any kind of success from their team.Little did they know, their prayers would be answered by Pat Kelsey, a man who revived a team and pulled them out of the basement of college basketball. Bringing fun and excitement into one of the largest fan bases in all of college basketball.

The Darkest Era in Louisville History

Kenny Payne, during the 2021 college Basketball season, was brought into the Louisville program to do great things. The team has been suffering from being mediocre during the last 3-4 years under head coach Chris Mack. With the firing of Mack the team needed a new coach and Kenny Payne, who had been an assistant at Kentucky for the past several years, as well as, having good success rates and being a Louisville Alumni was hired. Kenny had won a national championship with the team in the 1980s and so the team hoped he would replicate such successes; however, he would fail to even come close to the lowest expectations the team and fan base could have placed on him. Payne would go 4-28 in his first season as a Louisville head coach, the worst record in Louisville history. The season proceeding seemed to be a brighter one as the coach brought in some solid talent and looked to have a successful season to save his job. Payne won 8 games the season, bringing his cumulative record over the two years 12-52, which is absolutely pitiful, and is one of the worst stretches ever by a program within the Power 5 Conferences. Payne had been criticized for everything imaginable. His team often looked confused on offense and had a sloppy defense and even with better talent lacked the ability to bring out said talent. Louisville would fire him, some Louisville sponsors even offered to pay for the buyout of his contract and his tenure with the program would come to an end. 

The Coaching Search

Louisville then headed back out on the coaching market looking to hire its fourth coach in 8 years. They would  offered Baylor Bears head coach Scott Drew who refused and resigned a contract with Baylor. Then they offered Florida Antlantic head coach Dusty Maye who had just gone to the final four the job.  It seemed that Maye would take it but at the last second, he switched and went to Michigan, leaving Louisville to fall back on its third option: Pat Kelsey. Kelsey  coached at Charleston University for several years and had good success making NCAA tournaments at a bad program. Kelsey made light of the fact that he had been the third choice for a program that had been suffering, but not many knew that Kelsey would turn out to be the perfect man for the job. 

2024-25 Preseason and Season

Pat Kelsey would have to put together a roster from scratch and every single player on the team would elect to transfer out of the program to other universities. Kelsey would bring in some notable transfers as replacements such as Chucky Hepburn from Wisconsin or Reyne Smith from Charleston who followed Kelsey. The transfers brought in would be game changing and would bring Louisville back into significance as they all fit the style and system Kelsey wanted to run being very fast paced. The team would play in some preseason tournaments winning in the Bahamas over admittedly inferior competition, but it was useful to help the team glue together since it was all new players without chemistry. Once the season arrived the team would start the year 5-1 and win all the way to another regular season tournament in the Bahamas beating significant opponents like ranked Indiana or West Virginia both being rivals and being quality wins.  Then, the Cardinals lost in the championship of the tournament to Okolahoma, and  an injury to several key players like Keasean Pryor sitting him out for the year hurt the team significantly causing a near collapse in December.

Adversity and Success

With injuries to several key players on the roster leaving the team short-handed and Louisville having to go through its toughest stretch of the season playing head to head against ranked teams such as Ole Miss, Duke, and rival Kentucky. The team lost all three games in a row and many fans began to lose hope that this season could be successful due to injuries plaguing them. But Louisville slowly turned it around, winning game after game through December and January improving its record to 15-5 today from 6-5 in early December. The team found success learning how to play despite the injuries and with a good coaching job by Pat Kelsey.  The Cards strung together 9 wins in a row and the future looking bright as the team seemingly doesn't have a game on the schedule they are not favored in for the rest of the year. The team is firmly within the NCAA tournament if it happened today, and if the team continues stacking wins they could be ranked pretty highly by the end of the season. Louisville cracked the AP top 25 for the first time since January of 2021 on the 20th and looks to stay there for the continued future.

Outlook for the Season

Louisville looks to continue its success throughout the rest of the year and finish strong, making the tournament for the first time since 2018, and Pat Kelsey is even in the running for coach of the year this season with the impressive turn around he's accomplished. Kelsey has also began recruitment for the next season getting the number 7 ranked highschool prospect in the country Mikel Brown Jr to join the team next season. The future looks bright for Louisville and Kelsey who hope to keep the excitement around the revived program for years to come as basketball in Kentucky returns to prominence. 

 Sources

 “Cardinals Hire Pat Kelsey to Lead Men’s Basketball Program.” University of Louisville 

Athletic, https://gocards.com/news/2024/3/28/mens-basketball-cardinals-hire-pat-kelsey-to-lead-mens-basketball-program. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.

Holton, Brooks. “Louisville Basketball Bracketology 2025: What Seed Is UofL in NCAA 

Tournament Projections?” Journal, Louisville Courier Journal, 26 Jan. 2025, www.courier-journal.com/story/sports/college/louisville/2025/01/23/louisville-basketball-ncaa-tournament-projections-march-madness-predictions-bracketology-2025/77584477007/.