“It’s no magic pixie dust”: Pat Kelsey speaks on his ace transfer portal players after winning sixth consecutive game vs. Pitt

Pat Kelsey's Louisville men's basketball team defeated Pittsburgh 82-78 on Saturday, their sixth straight victory. Transfers Reyne Smith, Chucky Hepburn, Terrence Edwards Jr. and J'Vonen Hadley led the way for the Cardinals. Smith had 25 points as the four combined for 67 of the team's 82 points.

Kelsey praised his transfer signings after the game while somewhat downplaying the process of acquiring them.

“It’s the right pieces, you know. It’s no magic pixie dust that we did,” Pat Kelsey said in the postgame conference. “It’s, on the front end, making sure that you identify, find, recruit and sign players that are about the right things." (5:32)

“That are about winning, that are about we, not me, that are about what we call the power of the unit. And they have that uncommon commitment to the guy next to you.”

Kelsey, who is in his first year as Louisville's head coach, has led the Cardinals to a 12-5 record thus far and 5-1 in ACC, transforming the team into one of the hottest teams in college men's basketball this season.

Pat Kelsey believes ACC 'as good as any in the country'

Louisville coach Pat Kelsey believes that the ACC is better than it is credited for. Following the Cardinals' win over Pittsburgh, Kelsey praised the Panthers and the conference overall. (Start at 9:30)

“I think our league is as good as any in the country,” he said. “Two of the better teams, I think, were playing tonight. It was a big-time college atmosphere and they’re a really, really good team and there’s a lot of good teams in our conference.”

Louisville, now 5-1 in the conference, has not lost an ACC game since going down to Duke on December 8. But while Kelsey believes the ACC is among the best in the country, he admits not having the greatest knowledge about every team.

“Sometimes when I get questions like that, to talk about the trees and the big picture, and all the other teams in the conference, I am so narrow-minded focused on the next team we play against,” Kelsey said.

"I don’t know anything about anybody else because I don’t have the bandwidth in this pea-brain of mine to worry about that many other teams because we have like 40 of them in the conference now.”

With six straight wins under their belt, the Cardinals will hope for a seventh as they face Syracuse on Tuesday.