Fan throws water bottle onto Rupp Arena floor as Louisville gets blown out by Creighton in NCAAT

Louisville fans did not take losing in the first round of the 2025 NCAA Tournament very well, to say the least.

After complaints of being undervalued as the 8-seed coming into the Big Dance, the Cardinals failed to put together a competitive performance in a blowout loss to 9-seed Creighton to open the first round of the NCAA Tournament. With the game being held inside Rupp Arena, Louisville fans did a good job of painting Kentucky’s home building with red. But Creighton tuned them all out, jumping ahead by 20 points at one point in the first half before leading by double-digits the entire second half en route to an 89-75 victory.

The final score is hardly the main talking point of this game though.

Kentucky fans went all season long without disrupting games due to unnecessary antics, but Louisville fans couldn’t even make it through one whole game. Immediately after a poorly-timed technical on Cardinals’ head coach Pat Kelsey, a fan threw an open water bottle onto the floor late in the second half with Louisville down a dozen points. The game was briefly paused to clean up the spill, which only delayed the inevitable.

Pat Kelsey gets a tech and a Louisville fan throws a water bottle at the Creighton bench pic.twitter.com/HiAO4UPVuA

— NCAA Buzzer Beaters & Game Winners (@NCAABuzzerBters) March 20, 2025

To make matters worse for the Cardinal faithful, the Rupp Arena camera operator (who must be a Kentucky fan) continued to show fans wearing UK fans flexing the Ls down symbol on the jumbotron screen. Unhappy UL fans did not waste any time booing them for it, either.

When a small child dressed in a John Wall jersey with a banana hat on is tossing Ls down, you know things aren’t going well…

Again! https://t.co/A5HunsZEyh pic.twitter.com/FIKku1Fcbj

— Daniel Hager (@DanielHagerKSR) March 20, 2025

As for the actual game, it was close early on. Louisville even led 17-16 roughly midway through the opening half. But Creighton caught fire from there, finishing the half on a 33-17 run. Chucky Hepburn had 18 points for the Cards after 20 minutes, but Creighton had three Blue Jays in double-figures while shooting 9-16 from long range.

Louisville tried several times to push for a rally in the second half as the fan base desperately tried to cheer them toward a comeback. But the Cardinals could only trim its deficit down to 10 points once the game was already over with a little over 60 seconds to go in regulation. Creighton’s Jamiya Neal was unguardable, scoring 17 of his 29 points after the intermission. Every time it felt like Louisville was ready to strike, the Blue Jays had a timely answer.

And just like that, Louisville’s season has come to an end. Creighton advances to the Round of 32 with a matchup on Saturday in Rupp Arena against the winner of (1) Auburn vs. (16) Alabama State.