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November 28, 2024
PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas – UofL men’s basketball came up short in the Battle 4 Atlantis title game on Friday evening, falling to Oklahoma 69-64.
“I want to give Oklahoma a lot of credit,” said head coach Pat Kelsey. “Porter (Moser) is a phenomenal coach. He’s doing a great job there. Their kids are tough, they compete and they had an amazing tournament. Winning a championship down here is a heck of an accomplishment when you look at the caliber of teams and programs that came down here. I was proud of our guys. They fought. They played with so much grit. When you look at the stat sheet, we outrebounded them by 22. That’s usually a pretty good indicator that you played your butt off. They did too. They just made a few more plays than we did, so we’ve got to give them credit, tip the cap. It was a fun three days to get to the championship, it was a heck of an accomplishment. Our kids are crushed in there right now because we really believed even down the stretch, a couple of minutes left, short-handed that we were going to find a way to pull out a win, but give Oklahoma a lot of credit.”
Both teams spent almost the whole first half within three or fewer points from one another. Now team escaped the other between 18:18 and 4:26.
Oklahoma used a 14-4 run to finally break free taking a 37-27 lead with 1:50 to go in the half. Louisville was able to cut it to just a seven-point deficit before the break.
Following halftime, the Cardinals held Oklahoma to no field goals for seven and a half minutes, cutting the Sooner lead to just one point on three occasions in that stretch.
Louisville slowly chipped away at the deficit until a 7-2 run tied it up for the Cards with just over five minutes to go.
Oklahoma would regain the lead and never relinquish it. Louisville cut it to two twice in the final minute and a half but could never get over the hump, making only two of its final 10 field goal attempts.
Louisville outrebounded Oklahoma a whopping 44-23, its largest rebounding margin so far this season. The Cardinals’ 44 included 21 on the offensive end that translated to 25 second chance points.
The Cardinals were led in scoring by All-Tournament team member Chucky Hepburn and J’Vonne Hadley who both had 12 points. Hadley notched his second double-double of the season with 13 boards.
Noah Waterman logged his first double-double in a Louisville uniform with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
Jalon Moore of Oklahoma was named the Tournament MVP, finishing with a game-high 24 points and seven boards in the championship game.
Others on the All-Tournament Team included Oklahoma’s Jeremiah Fears and West Virginia’s Tucker Devries and Javon Small.
Louisville will travel back to the 502 for a three-game homestand, starting with the SEC/ACC Challenge on Tuesday at 9 p.m. in the KFC Yum! Center against Ole Miss.
