It was billed as a great early season matchup between No. 1 Louisville and No. 4 Michigan but when all was said and done, there was nothing great about it…unless you were on the Louisville side of things.
On Tuesday night, the Cardinals played a masterpiece of a defensive game as they held the Wolverines to 26% shooting on way to a 58-43 win.
Heading into the game, Michigan had all the hype as they were coming off an impressive run in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament where they easily dismantled No. 6 North Carolina and No. 8 Gonzaga in back to back games.
Louisville, on the other hand, moved up to No. 1 in the polls thanks to some teams ahead of them losing, but the talk heading into Tuesday was that the Cardinals really had not played a solid team up to that point.
Following the game, Louisville players Lamarr Kimble and Jordan Nwora explained to the media that the Michigan players wanted some ‘smoke’ and they got it.
From MLive:
“We had heard they wanted some smoke yesterday,” Nwora said. “So they got some smoke. And they got smoked. I mean, it’s what happens. They were talking. We were able to quiet it up a little bit.”
That led to a reporter asking, “For those of us who are fairly old, how would you define ‘smoke’?”
It drew laughter in the media room inside the KFC Yum! Center. Kimble, a 23-year-old whose nickname is “Fresh,” offered assistance.
“When somebody says ‘we want all the smoke,’ it’s just basically they’re ready for anything, they’re ready to take us on,” he explained. “Michigan players were saying they were ready to face us and whatever we had to bring they were going to get past that and get the win. They were talking into existence a win, and we’re not about that here. We’re about getting on the floor and playing and we showed that for 40 minutes.”
Nwora said that certain comments made by the Wolverines at their press conference on Monday had made their way to the Cardinals via Twitter.
“It’s all fun and games,” Nwora said. “None of us are going to talk about anything before the game. We’re just going to settle it on the court. And that’s what we did. They said they wanted some smoke so we went out there and gave it to ’em.”
Nwora appeared to be responding to Michigan sophomore David DeJulius reportedly saying on Monday, “We want all the smoke,” in reference to the Wolverines’ trip to Louisville. MLive was present at the press conference but did not hear DeJulius’ comment.
