Louisville’s 2025-26 Basketball Schedule Revealed: Can Pat Kelsey’s Cards Break Cincinnati’s Stronghold?
Louisville basketball has become a fascinating study in resilience and reinvention, and no one embodies that better than coach Pat Kelsey. After pulling off one of the most stunning turnarounds in Division I hoops last season—guiding the Cardinals to their first ACC Tournament title game since joining the league and snapping a March Madness dry spell dating back to 2019—expectations have skyrocketed. But instead of just resting on those laurels, Kelsey has assembled a revamped roster blending seasoned returnees with fresh talent, all aiming to capitalize on last year’s momentum. With the ACC shifting gears to an 18-game conference slate and Louisville forging key rivalries in the nonconference schedule—think Kentucky, Cincinnati, Indiana, and Memphis—the stage is set for a compelling sophomore act under Kelsey’s stewardship. As the team preps to hit the hardwood for the 2025-26 season, fans and pundits alike are eager to see if they can live up to the hype and write the next chapter in this promising saga.
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- The Cardinals’ nonconference schedule includes matchups against rivals Kentucky, Cincinnati and Indiana, as well as a renewed series with Memphis.
- The ACC is moving to an 18-game conference schedule, with Louisville’s primary partner being SMU.
For his next act, Kelsey has built a roster of five scholarship returners and five newcomers — and might not be done adding pieces before the team arrives on campus later this month. As of May 6, U of L came in at seventh in ESPN’s way-too-early top 25 for the 2025-26 season.”We’re going to keep trying to figure it out,” Heird said. “We had conversations last year; we reached out last year, and they said, ‘No, it doesn’t fit into our schedule.’ They reached out this year, and it doesn’t fit into our schedule.
A week later, the Cards will renew a rivalry, and kick off a six-year series, with Memphis on Dec. 13 at the Yum! Center. U of L and the Tigers have squared off 90 times — but not since 2017.”I’m hopeful that we can find a chance to play a home-and-home there. I think our fans would love it. Obviously, I think their fans would love it. I think it’s just a great opportunity for what looks to be two programs on the rise that are going to be really good for years to come.”
U of L athletics director Josh Heird confirmed that May 9, during a radio appearance on ESPN Louisville.The bottom three teams in the league standings at the end of the regular season will be left out of the field.
The Cards are hoping to make back-to-back trips to the ACC Tournament championship game at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.Here’s a look at all of the primary partnerships:
Kelsey & Co. will reportedly spend the first weekend of it in Indianapolis — playing cross-state rival Indiana for a third consecutive season, on Dec. 6 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Prior to this run, the programs hadn’t met on the hardwood since 2018.This story was updated to add a gallery.
Commissioner Jim Phillips said the change is “a direct result of our ongoing strategic review and analysis and provides our schools a better balance of nonconference and conference games, while also allowing them more autonomy in the scheduling process.”The ACC-SEC Challenge is typically scheduled for a Tuesday and Wednesday in late November/early December. Last year, ESPN announced the matchups in mid-June.
Louisville’s December slate was more certain at the time of publication.Up next: a Dec. 16 road trip to Thompson-Boling Arena at Food City Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, for the second leg of a home-and-home series against UT. The Volunteers dominated Round 1 in Louisville, 77-55, which was only Kelsey’s second official game at the helm.
Under this new format, ACC teams have been assigned a primary partner. Louisville’s is SMU; that means the Cards and the Mustangs will play a home-and-home series in 2025-26.Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @brooksHolton.
- Boston College-Notre Dame
- Clemson-Georgia Tech
- California-Stanford
- Duke-North Carolina
- Florida State-Miami
- Louisville-SMU
- N.C. State-Wake Forest
- Pitt-Syracuse
- Virginia Tech-Virginia
The Cardinals are dreaming big after Year 1 of Kelsey’s tenure went down as one of the largest turnarounds in Division I history — taking them to the ACC Tournament championship game for the first time since joining the conference in 2014 and ending a March Madness drought that dated back to 2019.Here’s everything we know (so far) about what’s on tap for Louisville in Year 2 of the Kelsey era:
Can the Cards live up to the hype? They should have plenty of chances to prove themselves, considering how the schedule is coming together.A couple hours after Heird broke the news of St. John’s falling through, Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports reported that the Cards and longtime rival Cincinnati are finalizing a two-year, neutral-site series beginning this season at Heritage Bank Center. In 2026-27, that game will be at Freedom Hall.Teams will then have one game, either home or away, against 14 of the 15 remaining league members.So, about that early-season matchup against Rick Pitino and St. John’s at Madison Square Garden the former Louisville coach mentioned was in the works at the Final Four … it’s not happening.
If the tournament follows a schedule similar to years past, crowning a champion on Selection Sunday eve, it would run March 10-14, 2026.
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