The Louisville men’s basketball team kicked off Thanksgiving week in style with an 87-46 blowout of Eastern Michigan Monday night inside the KFC Yum Center.
Despite a slow offensive start, 10 Cardinals scored on a night where the U of L defense limited their guests to 28.0 percent shooting from the field and just 13.0 percent from beyond the arc.
After a bit of a rough night last Friday against Cincinnati, Aly Khalifs gave his most complete performance as a Cardinal. The senior center came off the bench and hit a trio of three-pointers, finishing with 11 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 blocks.
Isaac McKneely (17) and Mikel Brown Jr. (11) also scored in double figures for Louisville, which moved to 6-0 for the first time since the 2019-20 season.
Outside of a stretch near the end of the first half where it felt like the team was sleepwalking for a bit, this was a mature performance from a team that won a pretty emotional game just 72 hours ago. They didn’t let their poor shooting on the offensive end affect their defensive intensity on the other (for the most part), and that’s yet another positive sign for the four months that lie in front of us.
NJIT in two nights should be the final walkover opponent of the season (Montana can hoop a little bit), and then you’ve got a ridiculous Arkansas-Indiana-Memphis State-Tennessee stretch that figures to leave us all emotionally spent.
Get your comfortable breaths in while you can.
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