Cardinals Host Samford in the Season Opener on Friday Night

Friday, November 13

LOUISVILLE, KY

7:00 PM ET

University of Louisville

SAMFORD

Tickets

Cardinals Host Samford in the Season Opener on Friday Night

November 12, 2015 | Men's Basketball

Cards open the season with Samford

By: Kim Pemberton

GAME 1
Date: Nov. 13, 2015
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Site: KFC Yum! Center/Crum Court, Louisville, Ky. (22,000) (81-13 in 6th yr.)
Television: ESPN3 - Kent Taylor, play-by-play; Bob Valvano, analyst.
Radio: WKRD (790 AM) Paul Rogers, play-by-play; Doug Ormay, analyst (Sirius channel 119)
Series History: Louisville leads 1-0
Last Meeting: UofL 80, Samford 54 (Nov. 15, 2012 at KFC Yum! Center; Battle 4 Atlantis opening game)
UofL National Ranking: unranked (receiving votes in both polls)
Officials: Mike Eades, Jerry Heater, Anthony Franklin
Next UofL Game: Nov. 17 vs. Hartford, 7:02 p.m. ET, Brooklyn Hoops Holiday Invitational, KFC Yum! Center (ESPN3)

Louisville will open its 2015-16 and 102nd men's basketball season on Friday as the Cardinals face Samford in the KFC Yum! Center. UofL has won its two exhibition games, including a 77-68 victory over Kentucky Wesleyan on Monday night as the Cards blocked 12 shots and scored 23 points off turnovers.

Louisville has just two players on its roster -- junior center Mangok Mathiang and walk-on junior guard David Levitch -- that have played with the Cardinals more than a year. The Cards return just 17 percent of their scoring and a quarter of their assists from last season's 27-9 NCAA Elite Eight team. It is the lowest percentage of scoring returning for Louisville since 1972-73 when UofL was without a returning starter from its 1972 Final Four team and returned just 9.7 percent of its scoring (254 of 2,614). Quentin Snider's 146 points in 2014-15 ranks him as UofL's top returning scorer.

Transfers Damion Lee and Trey Lewis are likely to headline this year's group after decorated careers at their previous schools. A candidate for the Julius Erving Small Forward of the Year Award, Lee ranked fourth in the nation with 21.4 points per game last season at Drexel. Lewis, meanwhile, was a first-team all-conference pick at Cleveland State, where he connected on 96 3-pointers in 2014-15.

It is just the eighth time in the last 10 seasons that the Cardinals have opened at home. UofL Coach Rick Pitino has a 26-3 record in opening games collectively at his four full collegiate coaching stops. The Cards have posted a 69-31 record in all-time season openers (47-12 home, 10-12 away, 12-7 neutral). UofL has won 20 of its last 22 openers and the last 11, beating Minnesota 81-68 in last season's opener in the Armed Forces Classic, played in a US Coast Guard hanger in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. This is the fourth-earliest season opener ever for the Cardinals (Nov. 9, two on Nov. 11 were earlier).

Samford (13- 19, 6-12 in SoCon last season) was picked to finish seventh in the Southern Conference. In addition to welcoming five freshmen and a pair of graduate transfers, UofL returns eight lettermen from its 2014-15 squad which reached the NCAA Elite Eight with a 27-9 record.

Guard Darius Jones-Gibson (12.2 ppg last season), a 6-1 senior from Lexington, Ky., was a preseason All-Southern Conference choice. Samford (13-19, 6-12 in SoCon last season) was picked to finish seventh in the league in a poll by both the coaches and media.

The Bulldogs are coached by Louisville native Scott Padgett, who played the first two of his collegiate seasons at Kentucky under UofL Coach Rick Pitino (1995-97). Padgett was a first round draft pick (28th overall) of the Utah Jazz in 1999 and spent eight years in the NBA.

In the only previous meeting between the two schools, Russ Smith totaled 18 points and three steals to lead Louisville to an 80-54 victory over Samford in the opening game of the Battle 4 Atlantis, played in Louisville's KFC Yum! Center on Nov. 15, 2012. The Cardinals went on to win the NCAA Championship that season.