Mikel Brown Jr. shot 10-of-16 from three-point range, poured in 45 points, and tied a Louisville record that had stood for nearly six decades. He did it on a night when the Cardinals wore their “Wes Unseld” throwback jerseys. If you wrote this scene in a movie script, a producer would call it too on-the-nose.
The 6-foot-5 freshman guard from Orlando dismantled North Carolina State in a 118-77 blowout Monday night at the KFC Yum! Center, breaking Cooper Flagg’s ACC freshman single-game scoring record in the process.
Flagg, now the frontrunner for NBA Rookie of the Year in Dallas, had set that mark at 42 points against Notre Dame just 13 months ago. Brown erased it with a half-court bomb that sent 14,389 white-clad fans into delirium.
Breaking Flagg’s Record While Tying a Louisville Legend
Brown’s 45 matched the number Unseld put up against Georgetown College on December 1, 1967. Unseld went on to become a Hall of Famer, NBA champion, league MVP, and one of the most important players in Louisville basketball history. His No. 31 hangs in the rafters, one of six retired numbers in program history.
Brown didn’t know he was chasing that number until the crowd told him.
“I did not know,” Brown told reporters afterward. “To be honest, I was just so locked in with just staying with it and just not having it drop off.”
The freshman shot 14-of-23 from the field, hit all seven free throws, grabbed nine rebounds, and added three steals. His 10 made threes tied Reyne Smith’s single-game program record from last season. Ryan Conwell, almost forgotten in the avalanche of Brown highlights, quietly added 31 points on 10-of-14 shooting.
What made Monday’s explosion so jarring was the context. Brown had struggled mightily since returning from a lower back injury that cost him eight games. Just two weeks earlier, Duke’s Dame Sarr locked him up in an 83-52 rout, holding Brown to 1-of-13 shooting. His three-point percentage before Monday sat at 26.9%.
Louisville coach Pat Kelsey had told Brown to trust the process, predicting exactly what eventually happened.
“I literally said this, and I’m not lying: ‘Mikel, your process is great. Nobody works harder than you,'” Kelsey recounted. “‘If you just keep staying consistent, you’re going to have a game where you make, like ten threes.'”
Ten threes it was.
What Brown’s Breakout Means for Louisville’s NCAA Tournament Hopes
The Cardinals improved to 18-6 overall and 8-4 in ACC play, riding a four-game winning streak heading into a Saturday matchup with Baylor in Fort Worth. They sit sixth in the conference standings with a month left before Selection Sunday.
Brown arrived on campus as a top-10 recruit, expected to be one-and-done. The back injury derailed that narrative temporarily, turning a potential lottery pick’s showcase season into a question mark. Monday answered most of those questions with an exclamation point.
“That means a lot, just because he’s a legend,” Brown said of tying Unseld. “I couldn’t do this without my teammates. They encourage me every single day to be myself and to stay aggressive and just be free.”
Conwell, the senior guard who benefited from all the defensive attention on Brown, put it simply: “His gravity on the floor, he makes it easy for me.”
CBS Sports has Brown projected at No. 7 in their latest mock draft, a number that didn’t move much during his slump because scouts understood what they were watching. The shooting was always there. It showed up in high school. It showed up in grassroots ball. It just needed time to arrive in Louisville.
Now it has. And the Cardinals, who looked vulnerable after that Duke beatdown, suddenly look dangerous. Brown’s ceiling is Flagg-level production. Monday proved it wasn’t just projection.