El Ellis scored 30 points and dished out 10 assists for his first career double-double on Wednesday night as host Louisville snapped a season-opening, nine-game losing streak with a 94-83 nonconference win over Western Kentucky.
Four other players scored in double figures for the Cardinals (1-9), who gave first-year coach Kenny Payne his first win. Kamari Lands added 15 points, while Brandon Huntley-Hatfield hit for 11. Sydney Curry and Jae’Lyn Withers each contributed 10 points and six rebounds in the team’s highest-scoring game of the season.
Jairus Hamilton scored 20 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and dished out four assists for the Hilltoppers (8-2). Dayvion McKnight added 25 points before fouling out and Emmanuel Akot hit for 12, but it wasn’t enough.
Louisville put the game away in the first six-plus minutes of the second half, expanding an 11-point halftime lead to 63-43 when Lands splashed a 3-pointer. While Western Kentucky got as close as 10, it couldn’t string together enough stops to make a comeback happen.
The Cardinals canned 54.4 percent of their field-goal tries, including 13 of 25 on 3-pointers, and sank 19 of 20 foul shots. They also dealt out 17 assists against 13 turnovers after averaging just eight assists and 17 turnovers in the first nine games.
Louisville entered the night as the third-worst scoring team in Division I (56.9 points per game) and the fourth-worst shooting team in Division I at 37.2 percent. It looked like more of the same through the first seven minutes as Western Kentucky established a 15-7 lead.
But beginning with Ellis’ 3-pointer at the 12:54 mark of the first, the Cardinals resembled the program they have been for most of the last 50 years. They took the lead for good when Ellis drained his third 3-pointer in less than five minutes with 8:02 left for a 24-22 edge.
Louisville took its first double-figure lead of the season late in the first half and took all the momentum into halftime when Ellis penetrated and found JJ Traynor for a 3-pointer as time expired, giving the Cardinals a 46-35 advantage.
–Field Level Media