Louisville basketball falls at UK. But there were some positives from Kenny Payne's team

LEXINGTON — This was destined to be a different sort of Louisville-Kentucky basketball game, less a Dream Game but more than a calming afternoon nap.

There were rows of empty seats upstairs at Rupp Arena on Saturday. There were disenfranchised fans on both sides, one lamenting Louisville’s historically slow start, the other fed up with Kentucky underperforming in its biggest games.

And so maybe it’s fitting that there were — oddly enough — some positives the Cardinals could draw even in a blowout loss to their rivals.

Even as Kentucky dominated Louisville 86-63 in the teams’ first meeting since 2020, the Cards (2-12) showed the occasional spark; not meaningless, though hardly game-changing.

"There were segments in the game where we did some good things," Louisville coach Kenny Payne said.

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From the other side:Jacob Toppin, Oscar Tsheibwe combine for 48 points in Kentucky's rout

There were the seven straight points U of L scored to open the second half, cutting UK’s lead from 15 to eight. There was a first-half mini-flurry of activity on the backboards (after literally no presence there to open the game). There was point guard El Ellis, who scored 23 points to lead the Cards.

And there was the final point spread, a moral victory in itself. Kentucky was a 23.5-point favorite. The Cardinals covered.

But they didn’t cover the Wildcats (9-5) often enough.

The result was 60% shooting for an offensively-challenged UK team and a blowout loss to a power-conference opponent for the Cardinals.

Louisville has played seven games against teams from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC and has lost all six, by an average margin of 23.8 points.

"They scored 19 points off our turnovers," Payne said. "You can't win. You can't win when the team is as big as they are as strong as they are as defensive minded as they are. You have to match their intensity, and it's the reason why Kentucky's Kentucky."

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Cards were battered on boards

The game was almost five minutes old — and Kentucky’s lead was 16-4 — before Louisville got its first rebound. It came from reserve forward JJ Traynor on a free-throw miss from Oscar Tshiebwe with 15:02 to play in the first half.

Kentucky had eight rebounds by that point. It grabbed offensive rebounds on its first three missed field goals and its first missed free throw.

The rebounding normalized a bit by halftime, but the Wildcats’ edge still was 19-10, and UK finished with a 33-20 margin.

Tshiebewe had 14 rebounds to go along with 24 points. No Louisville player had more than Brandon Huntley-Hatfield’s four.

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El Ellis belongs

If there was a genuine bright spot for Louisville, it was the play of Ellis, who finished with 23 points and two turnovers against one of the best defensive backcourts he’s seen this season.

Kentucky primarily used Sahvir Wheeler on Ellis early, but lockdown defender Cason Wallace got his chances, as did Kentucky wing Jacob Toppin. But Ellis mostly found his way into the lane against whatever UK threw his way.

Though he was just 1 for 6 from 3-point range, Ellis was the one Card consistently hard to guard for the Cats.

But the game was the latest reminder of how desperately Louisville needs another ballhandler, a player to run the offense not only when Ellis rests but to share the court with him, freeing him up to play off the ball and attack without the added burden of running the offense.

Payne didn’t try freshman Fabio Basili until the game was out of hand, and sophomore transfer Hercy Miller played six minutes. It’s probably safe to say neither is ready for a backcourt the caliber of Kentucky’s, but the game underscored a season-long storyline: Ellis is doing a lot, and he can’t do it alone.

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No stoppin’ Toppin

The biggest gap in the porous Louisville defense Saturday was in the middle of the floor, and Toppin was happy to fill it.

The Kentucky forward scored a season-high 24 points against the Cardinals, and he did much of his damage right around the rim. When Louisville went to a zone, Toppin would flash to the center of it, cutting for layups or pulling up for open mid-range jumpers.

When Louisville finally found Toppin on late second-half plays, it twice left Tshiebwe unguarded under the basket for easy dunks. Once, two U of L defenders directed their attention to Toppin in the right corner behind the 3-point line, leaving Tshiebwe alone under the basket. On another play Tshiebwe's defender went to Toppin, giving Toppin an easy assist.

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"I don't understand why it was so wide open," Toppin said. "I would turn, and there would be nobody there. The first time I did it I was like, 'Whoa,' like, it kind of caught me off guard and I missed the shot. I was like 'OK, if they do it again, I'm gonna make the shot,' and they just kept leaving me open in the paint, and the one time they didn't I just dumped it off to Oscar."

Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brett Dawson at mdawson@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter at @BDawsonWrites.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville vs Kentucky basketball takeaways: Kenny Payne, Cards fall