Season 113 of Louisville Basketball tipped off Monday night in the KFC Yum! Center as the No. 11 Cards hosted the Chattanooga Mocs. Louisville was picked to finished third in the ACC and Chattanooga picked fifth in the SoCon. Prior to tipoff it was announced The Ville would be without Dayton transfer forward De’Shayne Montgomery for 4-to-6 weeks with a foot injury.
The Cards torched the nets in the first media segment. Louisville started 6-for-7 from the field and 3-for-3 from beyond the arc. Guard Jackson Shelstad made two deep balls and forward Alvaro Folgueiras chipped in a transition three from the elbow. With an 8-5 lead, Flory Bidunga asserted his dominance by corralling rebounds, getting steals and throwing down an emphatic slam to capitalize a 9-0 run to put The Ville up 17-5.
The dunks and points in the paint continued as Adrian Wooley diced his way to the hoop for two early buckets, Karter Knox threw down an alley-oop from Folgueiras and Seth Trimble hit a runner and uncontested dunk off a nifty pass from Folgueiras on a baseline out of bounds play to put the Cards up 25-11.
Wooley would score seven of the next 12 with a Folgueiras three-pointer and two free throws from Ekezie to push the lead to 37-14, capping an 8-0 run with 9:43 left in the first half. The Mocs responded with an 8-0 run of their own to make it 37-22 capped by a layup and three pointer from Kobe Mcdowell-White forcing a Louisville timeout.
Shelstad took over from there hitting a three-pointer, then an uncontested layup off a beautiful outlet pass from Trimble. Finally, he threw a lob to Wooley who collected in mid-air and threw another lob to Knox for the alley-oop to put an exclamation on a 7-0 run and bring the lead to 44-22. The Yum! Center came to life even with the late start as their team was living up to the preseason billing.
Forward LJ Wells and freshman Isaac Ellis found the scorebook from the free throw line in their Louisville debuts. Wooley found Bidunga for another one-handed lefty dunk in the post and Ekezie and Knox hit late three-pointers to push the Louisville lead to 56-35 at the break.
The Cards shot 56.8% from the field in the first half (21-37), including 42.1% (8-19) from three The Mocs shot 48% (12-25) from the field and 46.7 (7-15) from three-point range. Louisville made six dunks, had 26 points in the paint and 11 points off turnovers in the first half.
Knox led the way with seven points and six rebounds, Bidunga had eight points but three fouls and Shelstad and Wooley each had 11 points.
Louisville extended the lead to 67-43 with 14 minutes left in the game. Bidunga had two rim rattling dunks off assists from Ellis and Shelstad. Trimble had a nifty and-one, absorbing contact and hanging in the air for a contested layup and then hit the only three for The Ville in the closing twenty minutes.
The offense went stagnant the rest of the way being outscored 27-17. In the second half Louisville shot 29% (9-31) from the field and 6.3% (1-16) from three-point range. Trimble led the way in the second half with nine points, Bidunga had eight points and six rebounds.
Bidunga ended the night as the leading scorer with 16 points and nine rebounds. Trimble and Shelstad added 13 points each. Wooley had 15 points and 4 steals & Knox finished with nine points and 11 rebounds.
The Mocs were led by forward Yonatan Levy and guard Zach Bleshoy who had 14 points each.
Louisville scored first and led the whole way, but the poor shooting down the stretch and Chattanooga closing the final gap to 14 leaves plenty for Pat Kelsey and company to clean up before Saturday’s matchup with Morehead State. The game will tip at noon and be streamed on ACC Network Extra.
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