A long-time rivalry between Ohio River rivals renews Friday night when No. 6 Louisville visits Cincinnati.
The Cardinals (4-0) are among the fastest risers in the polls since the start of the season, jumping six spots to No. 6 after rolling past another rival — Kentucky 96-88 — behind star freshman Mikel Brown Jr., who tallied a team-high 29 points.
While Friday’s game is in Cincinnati, the annual Hoops Classic at Heritage Bank Center will be played at the neutral downtown site, not the UC campus.
The two schools were once bitter rivals in various conferences, including the Missouri Valley Conference, Metro Conference, Conference USA and Big East before Louisville left for the ACC and Cincinnati wound up in the Big 12.
Louisville followed up its emotional victory over Kentucky with a 106-81 win over Ohio on Saturday, and has scored 100 points in three games in a single season for the first time since the 2010-2011 season.
“I am proud of our guys,” said Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey, who is a Cincinnati native. “Coming off a game that was the magnitude of the one the other night in terms of hype, I worried a little bit about human nature, whether there would be some kind of let down. But that goes against everything we believe in. … I thought our guys were phenomenal in preparation and were on the details.”
Cincinnati (4-0) is also perfect in its first four games, including a win over in-state rival Dayton. The Bearcats, however, are coming off a somewhat sluggish game in which they trailed 36-30 at halftime before pulling away for a 72-55 win over Mount. St. Mary’s on Sunday.
Cincinnati pulled away with a 19-2 run during a seven-minute stretch to take a 61-50 lead with 6:22 remaining.
Day Day Thomas scored a game-high 16 points and went a perfect 3-for-3 from beyond the arc. He also added season highs of five assists and five rebounds. Freshman guard Keyshuan Tillery chipped in a career-best nine points in 14 minutes.
Cincinnati’s guard play will be tested by Louisville’s top-10 roster. The Cardinals have four guards averaging double figures in scoring through four games.
“There’s just a ton of great guard play,” Cincinnati coach Wes Miller said of Louisville. “Mikel Brown – I think the ability is there in every way. He’s got the ability to make every read in the open court in space and on pick and roll. He’s got great size. He shoots at a really high rate, off the catch, off the dribble. The only thing you could say is he’s still young, but he doesn’t play young.
In addition to Brown, Ryan Conwell plays a prominent role for Louisville. Conwell was on the Xavier roster last season, and Miller said he was the toughest player for his team to guard when he was with the Musketeers.
“It’s hard to game plan for any four of them individually because there’s somebody else out there on the court,” Miller said. ” … A lot of teams you’ll play against have one guy that you can really focus on. Louisville has four.”
