100 - 68 
The Cardinals had little trouble with their crosstown opponents.
Clare Grant/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Louisville basketball is back ... to clearly being the best basketball team in the city of Louisville.
After losing to Bellarmine two seasons ago and struggling mightily against the Knights in 2023, U of L had no issues with their crosstown foes on Tuesday night, rolling to a 100-68 victory inside the KFC Yum Center.
Terrence Edwards led five Cardinals in double figures, drilling 10-of-14 field goal attempts on his way to a team-high 26 points. Kasean Pryor added a large jolt of the bench, scoring 21 points and snagging seven rebounds. Chucky Hepburn (16), J’Vonne Hadley (10) and James Scott (10) also hit double figures in points.
U of L started a bit slow out of the gates, struggling with Bellarmine’s constant cutting on offense as the Knights kept pace for the game’s opening eight minutes. A 9-0 run sparked by Pryor’s emergence off the bench and some aggressive play from Edwards and Hadley allowed Louisville to create separation and carry a 48-27 lead into halftime. The 48 points were the most Louisville has scored in a first half since dropping 50 on Eastern Kentucky back on Dec. 14, 2019.
Bellarmine, which was without leading scorer Jack Karasinski on Tuesday, played with their hosts for chunks of the second half, but was never able to cut the Cardinal lead to fewer than 14. Former Kentucky Mr. Basketball Ben Johnson led BU with a game-high 29 points on 6-of-11 shooting from beyond the arc.
With the win, Louisville improved to 14-1 all-time against Bellarmine and 24-1 against the Knights if you include exhibition games.
It wasn’t always pristine, but it was a solid bounce-back after the ass-whipping from Tennessee and the 10-day layoff. Winthrop on Friday night will provide a tougher test than either Bellarmine or Morehead State did, and should be a proper tune-up for an extremely important week coming up in The Bahamas.
