Louisville, the most surprising team in college basketball this season, earned two of the major awards Monday in Atlantic Coast Conference balloting by the league media, with Pat Kelsey being named Coach of the Year and senior point guard Chucky Hepburn honored as Defensive Player of the Year.
Kelsey took over a program that had produced just 12 wins in the past two seasons and guided the Cardinals to a 25-6 record and a second-place finish in the ACC at 18-2 after being picked ninth.
U of L, which is ranked No. 13 in both the AP and Coaches polls, is seeded No. 2 in the conference tournament and will debut in the quarterfinals Thursday. The Cards have won nine games in a row and 19 of their last 20.
The 17-game improvement from last year's 8-24 record is not only a program record but also the largest turnaound in the nation this season.
Kelsey received 45 votes to Duke coach Jon Scheyer's 25, while Clemson's Brad Brownell was third with eight votes. The Tigers handed the league champion Blue Devils their only conference defeat.
This marks the third time Kelsey has won a conference coach of the year award and the third different league. He was Colonial Athletic Association coach of the year at College of Charleston last season and won the Big South honor with Winthrop in 2021. Last season he was also named the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and the National Association of Basketball Coaches' District Coach of the Year after the Cougars finished 31-4.
He's the first Louisville coach to win a conference coach of the year award since Rick Pitino was voted the Conference USA honor in 2004-05. Kelsey, who earned a $25,000 contract bonus for the award, is on the watch list for National Coach of the Year.
Louisville's 25 regular season wins are the most by a first-year head coach and tied for third in the school's 111 seasons. Kelsey had to build his roster from scratch when he took over last March because all the players from Kenny Payne's 8-24 team entered the transfer portal. He did it with 12 transfers and one true freshman.
He also had to overcome early-season injuries to leading scorer Kasean Pryor (knee) and key reserve Koren Johnson (shoulder) that sidelined them the rest of the year.
A couple hours after learning about the honor, Kelsey posted on X: "The Team. The Team. The Team. 25 Strong is the deal."
And after U of L's final regular season win over Stanford Saturday, which drew the largest crowd since 2020 at 18,707, Kelsey thanked athletic director Josh Heird for hiring him from a mid=major program and had this to say at his postgame press conference:
"I have a confidence and a belief in who we are, what we do as a staff and what we do in terms of building our program; it usually works out for us. But, man, I didn't think we'd be in this position right now; it's been so much fun.
"I was just kind of Joe Bag of Doughnuts, a mid-major guy, and Josh Heird took a chance on me. The fear of letting guys down in preparation is one of those things, but, like, just working your butt off every day to make Josh look good -- that he made a good hire -- that motivates me every single day."
On his Monday night radio show, Kelsey told host Paul Rogers: "Everybody doing their job at the highest level possible is why we're good. This isn't a Coach of the Year award, it's a 25 Strong award. I really believe that."
Meanwhile, Hepburn became the first Cardinal to be chosen the ACC's defensive honor with 70 votes and the fourth to earn a spot on the all-conference first team since U of L joined the league for the 2011-15 season. The other first-team Cards were Donovan Mitchell (2016-17), Jordan Nwora (2019-20) and Carlik Jones (2020-21).
Hepburn, a 6-2 transfer from Wisconsin, where he started for three seasons, led the ACC in steals with 2.4 per game and was third in assists with 5.9, while also averaging a career-high 16.3 points per game. He shot 44.9% overall and 35% from 3-point range in 34.4 minutes per game and scored a career-high 32 points in an overtime win against West Virginia in the Battle 4 Atlantis. He ranks seventh in single-season assists at U of L with 176.
Others on the first team are Duke's Cooper Flagg, the league Player/Rookie of the Year; Stanford's Maxime Raynaud; Chase Hunter, CLemson; and Hunter Sallis, Wake Forest. Flagg was second to Hepburn for Defensive Player of the Year with 57 votes.
Terrence Edwards Jr. was the only other U of L player to receive All-ACC honors, getting a spot on the third team. The James Madison transfer averaged 15.8 points, four rebounds and 2.6 assists. In ACC play, he led the Cards with 16.9 ppg.
Louisville coach Pat Kelsey was selected as the ACC Coach of the Year. (Tim Aylen/Bahamas Visual Services via AP)
