Louisville basketball’s Pat Kelsey recaps win over California Golden Bears
After a 90-70 road victory, Louisville basketball coach Pat Kelsey commended the California Golden Bears for being a challenging, dangerous team.
- Mikel Brown Jr. and Kasean Pryor missed Louisville basketball’s win at California on Tuesday due to injuries.
- When asked about their status for Friday’s 8 p.m. tipoff at Stanford, coach Pat Kelsey deferred to the ACC’s new pregame injury reports.
- The first of those reports was published Thursday night, with Sananda Fru and Aly Khalifa joining Brown and Pryor on it. The second will drop two hours before Friday’s game begins.
STANFORD, CA — When asked about Mikel Brown Jr. and Kasean Pryor’s status for Louisville basketball’s game Friday at Stanford, Pat Kelsey deferred to the ACC’s new pregame injury reports.
“I guess it’s because of gambling; is that probably what it is? I have no idea why all of a sudden we’re doing that,” the coach said after the No. 13 Cardinals (11-2, 1-0 ACC) beat California on Tuesday. “It’s fine. My whole thing is: The injury report will come out at the end of the week. I’m not talking about injuries anymore. If you ask me about how this guy is, like, the injury report will come out at the end of the week.”
So, here’s what the first of the two reports, released Thursday night, said: Brown (lower back) and Pryor (knee) are questionable for the 8 p.m. tipoff at Maples Pavilion; and Sananda Fru (hand) and Aly Khalifa (shoulder) are probable. The second report will be released at 6 p.m. Friday.
Brown, a projected lottery pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, missed his third consecutive game Tuesday. Kelsey said the freshman point guard was a full participant in practice Sunday; and on Monday he was listed as probable to return against the Golden Bears. When the final injury report dropped two hours before tipoff at Haas Pavilion, Brown was downgraded to a game-time decision. He went through warmups wearing a back brace and was ruled out 11 minutes before the game began.
Brown has not seen the court since a Dec. 13 win over Memphis at the KFC Yum! Center. He entered conference play as UofL’s No. 2 scorer with 16.6 points per game on 38.1% shooting (26.8% from 3-point range) in addition to leading the team with 5.1 assists against 2.4 turnovers across 27 minutes per contest.
The ACC injury reports released before Tuesday’s game against Cal did not shed any light on the nature of Pryor’s injury, but Louisville released a supplementary statement for clarity Thursday night. The sixth-year forward, whose 2024-25 season was derailed by a torn anterior cruciate ligament last November, was coming off a stretch of three games that saw him average 10.3 minutes off the bench. He scored a season-high 11 points against Memphis and grabbed a season-high seven rebounds during a Dec. 20 win over Montana.
Fru is coming off his first collegiate double-double (13 points and 14 rebounds) in 26 minutes against the Golden Bears. The 6-11 junior from German was averaging 10.8 points and leading the team in both field-goal percentage (75.7%) and rebounding (6.8) in 23.2 minutes per game as of Thursday.
Khalifa went scoreless with four rebounds and four assists, tying Ryan Conwell for the team lead, across 13 minutes off the bench at Cal. He checked out for good with 11:48 remaining in regulation. Entering Friday’s game, the redshirt senior was averaging 2.3 points on 33.3% shooting with 2.1 rebounds and 3.1 assists in 11.2 minutes per contest.
After playing Stanford, Louisville has No. 5 Duke visiting the Yum! Center on Jan. 6 for a rematch of last season’s ACC Tournament championship game.
The game between UofL and Stanford will air on the ACC Network, which is channel 610 on AT&T U-Verse; channel 612 on DirecTV; channel 402 on Dish; and channels 524 and 937 on Spectrum.
Chris Sylvester (play-by-play) and Ben Braun (analyst) will be on the call.
If you subscribe to a cable package, you’ll be able to livestream the game via ESPN.com and the ESPN app. If you don’t have cable, you can livestream the game via Fubo, which offers a free trial here.
Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at [email protected] and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
