The biggest game in the history of The Basketball Tournament is here.

Former Louisville Cardinals and Kentucky Wildcats are at Freedom Hall and will face off at 9 p.m. for an opportunity to advance to TBT’s Final Four in Philadelphia. The winner of the tournament will claim its $1 million grand prize.

With bragging rights also on the line, the teams representing the Cards (The Ville) and Cats (La Familia) will play in front of a record-breaking TBT crowd of 11,000-plus at the Fairgrounds.

Courier Journal journalists C.L. Brown, Brooks Holton, Ryan Black and Clare Grant are at Freedom Hall and will have updates — here and on X, formerly Twitter — throughout the action and complete coverage after. You can follow them at @clbrownhoops, @brooksHolton, @RyanABlack and @ClareGPhotos.

The Ville went on a 15-6 run to close out the first half and cut La Familia’s lead to three.

Eric Bledsoe and Willie Cauley-Stein have a combined 17 points.

The Ville’s Chinanu Onuaku has eight points and 13 rebounds.

The announced attendance for tonight’s game between The Ville and La Familia at Freedom Hall was 13,506.

The previous TBT attendance record was 7,202.

Twelve-time NBA All-Star Chris Paul will be in the crowd for The Ville vs. La Familia tonight.

Paul is a co-owner of TBE Enterprises; which puts on TBT and The Soccer Tournament.

Paul, 39, is heading into his 20th season in the NBA. He recently signed to play for the San Antonio Spurs.

As of 7:45 p.m. Monday, La Familia was a five-point favorite (-115) over The Ville on DraftKings, which set an over-under line of 149.5 points (-115).

The money-line odds were La Familia (-215), The Ville (+165).

C.L. Brown: Louisville-Kentucky rivalry is unmatched. The Ville vs. La Familia latest example

Cards vs. Cats: Our mock draft using Louisville and Kentucky’s TBT rosters

‘Hungry to win’: Former U of L star Reece Gaines embracing opportunity to lead The Ville

Rivalry showdown set: The Ville wins Louisville regional championship

Column: The Ville is preview of energy Pat Kelsey will bring back to Louisville basketball

Wildcats win: La Familia claims Lexington regional title at Rupp Arena

La Familia vs. The Ville will air on FS1.

The La Familia/The Ville game will be livestreamed on the official TBT website, which can be accessed here.

You also can stream FS1 on Fubo, which offers a free trial here.

• Dillon Avare, a Lexington native who played at Louisville from 2014-16, then transferred to Eastern Kentucky for his final two seasons of eligibility. Avare logged five minutes during last year’s TBT.
• Chane Behanan, a physical forward from Cincinnati whose time with the Cards (2011-13) came to an abrupt end when he was dismissed from the program due to a failed drug test. Behanan finished second on The Ville in points (13.3) and rebounds (seven) per game last summer.
• Chris Dowe, a Louisville native who starred at Eastern High School before playing at Bellarmine from 2009-13. The 6-foot-2 guard played for The Ville last summer and averaged 7.3 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game.
• Montrezl Harrell, an eight-year NBA vet who was a freshman during U of L’s national championship run in 2013. Harrell missed the 2023-24 season while recovering from surgery to repair a torn ACL and a meniscus tear in his right knee.
• David Johnson, a Louisville native whom the Toronto Raptors selected 47th overall in the 2021 NBA Draft after his sophomore year with the Cards. The Trinity High School grad spent the 2023-24 season playing for the Memphis Hustle, the Grizzlies’ G League affiliate.
• Chris Jones, who played for the Cards from 2013-15 and torched The Ville for 25 points last summer as a member of the Jackson TN Underdawgs. In May, Jones helped the London Lightning of Ontario win a third consecutive Basketball Super League title and received its Most Valuable Player award.
• Nick Mayo, a four-year starter at EKU from 2015-19 and a four-time member of the All-Ohio Valley Conference first team. The 6-9 forward played for The Ville last summer and won fans over with a thunderous, one-handed dunk worthy of a poster in the team’s first-round victory.
• Chinanu Onuaku, a 6-10 center who left U of L for the NBA after the 2015-16 season; during which he was named to the ACC’s All-Defensive team as a sophomore. Onuaku spent two years with the Houston Rockets and returns to The Ville after another stint with Santeros de Aguada in Puerto Rico.
• Omar Prewitt, a Mount Sterling native who played at William & Mary from 2013-17 and left as a top-five scorer in program history. The 6-7 wing had 13 points in 16 minutes during The Ville’s second-round win last summer.
• Peyton Siva, the point guard who led the Cards to a national title in 2013. This spring, Siva was named to new Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey’s staff as director of player development and alumni relations. A year ago, he amassed 19 points, 12 assists and six steals during TBT.
• Russ Smith, a star of the 2013 national championship team whose No. 2 is hanging in the KFC Yum! Center rafters. The former All-American has been playing in Italy and created limited-edition bottles of his Mr. & Mrs. Bourbon for TBT. He was The Ville’s top scorer in two of its three games last summer.
• Derrick Walker, a 6-9 forward who played for Tennessee (2017-19) and Nebraska (2019-23) and as a senior was a second-team All-Big Ten selection. For his collegiate career, Walker averaged 6.2 points and 4.1 rebounds across 139 appearances. He has been playing professionally in Spain.

Reece Gaines, a U of L Athletics Hall of Famer who ranks fourth among the top scorers in program history, has replaced Mark Lieberman as The Ville’s head coach. Gaines returned to his alma mater in 2021 as Chris Mack’s director of player development and alumni relations, then shifted into a video operations role under Kenny Payne.

Members of Gaines’ staff include Luke Hancock, the Most Outstanding Player of the 2013 Final Four; Keith Oddo, who played for the Cards as a walk-on graduate transfer during the 2019-20 season; Mike Stone, an assistant at Transylvania University; and Terrence Commodore, whose coaching resume includes stints at EKU and Evansville.

Former Kentucky star Tyler Ulis is La Familia’s head coach.

Two more former Wildcats, Jon Hood and Sean Woods, are assistant coaches. Jazz Ferguson, a Louisville native who starred at Moore High, also serves as an assistant.

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A federal agency is sending investigators to south Louisiana to look into the cause of a crude oil spill that has tainted a portion of Bayou Lafourche, a spokesman for the company where the accident took place said Monday.

As the third day of cleanup following the Saturday morning spill progressed, officials overseeing the cleanup calculated that 34,440 gallons of crude were released from a storage tank near Raceland. The oil originated from the Crescent Midstream Crude Oil Facility, spilling through a protective dike into a stormwater canal and eventually through a culvert under Highway 308 that flows into the bayou.

Michael Smith, public information officer for Crescent Midstream and the Unified Command overseeing the spill response, said the 34,440 gallons of oil — or 820 barrels — includes the amount spilled on the grounds of the facility. The accident does not involve the large cylindrical storage tank on the property, which Smith said was empty before Saturday.

Officials from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration will be on site within the next few days, Smith said, confirming Crescent Midstream representatives had spoken with the agency Monday. They will begin an official investigation, taking over the informal work of the Unified Command, which is composed of state and local officials along with Crescent Midstream.  

Meanwhile, work continues to capture the crude from the bayou. An advisory to conserve water remains in place for residents and business along Bayou Lafourche from south of the Louisiana Highway 182 bridge to Port Fourchon, a stretch that covers 55 miles. However, drinking water remains safe to consume, Lafourche Parish President Archie Chaisson said.  

Our news partners at WVUE-TV Fox 8 report that Lafourche Parish Water District No. 1 has issued a water conservation notice for all customers in the parish.

Chaisson reported Thursday evening that a fish kill was spot in the incident area. No immediate information was provided on the type or number of fish affected.

An update on the wildlife impact increased the death toll to 17 salamanders, in addition to the previously reported three turtles and one crawfish. Cleanup crews were able to capture one of three oil-covered ducks on the bayou. It was taken to a rehabilitation center for cleaning and care.

A black sheen trailing down the bayou remained visible Monday from aerial photographs. Crews were washing oil from the banks of the bayou and collecting it with skimmers, boom and vacuum trucks for disposal. More than a mile of boom — 6,800 feet — has been deployed on the bayou so far, according to Monday afternoon’s update from the Unified Command. 

Smith stressed that oil dispersants, which are not approved for inland water use, are not among the methods being used to contain the oil. 

Use of oil dispersants has been under added scrutiny since the deadly BP Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010 just off the coast of Louisiana. The chemical Corexit has been blamed for sickening cleanup workers who responded to the manmade disaster. Medical issues ranging from skin rashes to cancer have been detailed in thousands of lawsuits.  

Cleanup crews are pumping water from the bayou to remove oil from the bayouside, Smith said. As a result, it’s causing some oil to flow upstream, which could find its way back to shore if it can’t be collected from the water with booms or skimmers. 

“It could get worse before it gets better,” Smith said in an interview. “You could see oil cleaned up in front of your house one day, only to see it back again the next day.”

The bayou remains closed to boaters from the Highway 182 bridge in Raceland to the Lockport Bridge, with the Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office handling enforcement.