With just under two minutes remaining, and with his team leading Indiana by 33 points, Louisville men’s basketball walk-on Patrick Antonelli checked into the game.
Twenty-four seconds of game time later, the 5-foot-11 guard calmly sank a pair of free throws to give him his first-ever points as a Division I player.
What was already a notable accomplishment for Antonelli was made that much sweeter not because of something on the court, but something just to the side of it — his mother, Debbie Antonelli, was calling the game for ESPN and was sitting only about 30 feet away from him when he made the free throws.
Louisville’s 89-61 rout Wednesday of No. 15 Indiana in the quarterfinals of the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas elicited a slew of warm, positive and euphoric emotions for Cardinals fans who watched their proud and storied program become a punchline for the better part of a decade, initially for off-court scandals and then because of shockingly awful on-court results during Kenny Payne’s disastrous two-year tenure.
A cathartic afternoon was capped off with a heartwarming moment, with Antonelli not only playing, but also scoring while his mother, a former standout player at NC State, had the opportunity to narrate the action.
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Though Antonelli is from South Carolina, he grew up a Louisville fan, according to his biography on the Cardinals’ official roster. He joined the team as a walk-on ahead of coach Pat Kelsey’s first season after playing the previous four seasons at Emory & Henry, a Division II school in Virginia, where he started 56 of his 63 career games.
During the win against the Hoosiers, Debbie Antonelli described playing for Louisville as “a dream come true” for her son, who’s pursuing a master’s degree in sports administration.
The elder Antonelli played at NC State from 1982-86, helping lead the Wolfpack to two Sweet 16s and an ACC regular-season and tournament championship in 1985. She has worked as a television and radio broadcaster for various networks for 36 years. She had ties to the commonwealth of Kentucky long before her son arrived at Louisville’s campus, as she served as Kentucky’s first director of marketing and broadcast the first women’s basketball games on television for the Wildcats.
She has won two Emmy Awards for her work and was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022.
On Wednesday, though, she got to enjoy being a proud mother.
“All I care about is him being around good guys and being around a good coaching staff and that’s what he’s got,” she said of her son as he checked into the game.
And, now, he got an unforgettable memory, too.
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