By Derek DeBurger

No. 6 Louisville lost to the No. 25 Arkansas Razorbacks in their first true road game of the season.

Out of breath

Louisville won the tip and then proceeded to fall behind 6-0 on baskets all inside the paint.

The Cards started to get back into it with a three-pointer from Ryan Conwell and an and-1 from Isaac McKneely to take the deficit to 8-6.

Where the game got out of hand is when Trevon Brazile started stretching the court. The 25% shooter from deep hit two shots from beyond the arc and added a dunk to take the Arkansas lead to seven points.

Louisville was able to mostly hold serve, but then the Backs score seven straight points off of free throws and capped it off with another three from Brazile to make it 37-22.

The discrepancy in fouls was apparent, as Arkansas was called for six in the first half compared to Louisville’s 13.

Louisville went into the half trailing 47-29.

Stop the man!

The second half started without much of a bang, with Arkansasgrowing their lead as high as 20 points.

But almost immediately after that the Cards scored two quick baskets to cut it down to 15. John Calipari called a timeout to try and settle his troops, but they failed to score and a three from J’Vonne Hadley cut the lead down to 12.

Louisville kept the pressure up, with Mikel Brown Jr. shaking off a bad first half and attacking the paint to either score or kick out to open shooters.

Back-to-back threes from Brown and Adrian Wooley took the lead down to just six points. And just a few possessions later Hadley hit a layup to make the deficit just 66-61.

At that point the energy had been drained from both the Arkansas players and the fans in the arena.

However, the defense disappeared as Arkansas scored on 10 of their final 12 possessions.

Most of those points were inside the paint and the Cards continued to score themselves, but it was too late to trade buckets.

With about two minutes left in the game and no progress made, Louisville started defending themselves by jacking up ill-advised shots.

Louisville took their first loss of the season 89-80.

Some concern emerging

Putting the questionable discrepancy in fouls to the side, the athleticism of Arkansas clearly bothered Louisville.

The Cards got dominated on the boards, losing the rebounding battle 46 to 36.

Brown also had a much taller defender on him most of the game, seriously slowing him down in the first half.

While he did end up with a game-high 22 points, he took a handful of awful shots in both halves, trying to force the issue.

Sananda Fru had a quietly good game, scoring 14 points with eight rebounds.

The Cards have some things to work on, and they finally have some film to obsess over.

Louisville is now 7-1 on the season.

Photo Courtesy / Mallory Peak / Louisville Athletics