Louisville basketball | Mangok Mathiang: A rollercoaster career with the Cards

Mangok Mathiang opted to speak first, ahead of Tony Hicks and David Levitch, during Friday's press conference with Louisville's graduating seniors.

The redshirt senior who turned 24 years old in October walked by media members and laughed off a few jokes about his age. Two questions in, Mathiang was asked if it feels like he has been at U of L "forever."

"Sure does," Mathiang said.

And how many old man jokes has he heard in recent months?

"Well, I've heard about 10 in the last two minutes, so you just do the math on that," Mathiang said with a grin.

Kidding aside, Saturday's 2 p.m. matchup with Notre Dame at the KFC Yum Center really is the end of the line for the 6-foot-10 center who was born in the Sudan and grew up in Australia. It will be his 111th game in a U of L uniform.

Since arriving on campus at the start of the 2012-13 academic year, Mathiang has seen his team win a national championship and reach the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 in the NCAA tournament. The Cards have won 88 games with Mathiang in the lineup and lost just 22.

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Mathiang has played with and practiced against six different players who eventually made NBA rosters. He's also seen U of L's program embroiled in scandal amid allegations of NCAA violations.

Individually, Mathiang's U of L career is best described as a rollercoaster. He was solid as a redshirt freshman, starting 14 games and averaging 3.6 points and 3.6 rebounds while making 52.8 percent of his shots. He only made 38.8 percent of his shots the following season, and his would-be-winning free throw in the Elite 8 rimmed out with five seconds left in a game the Cards lost in overtime.

His following season was cut short by a broken foot that forced him to miss the final 21 games of the season. He averages 6.9 points and six rebounds this campaign, appearing in 29 of 30 games and making 16 starts. The one game he missed was due to suspension for violating team curfew, which cost him the team captaincy.

But all those ups and downs haven't really fazed Mathiang, whose family escaped out of the war-torn Sudan in a caravan in the middle of the night when he was 5.

"You don't think too much about the downs," Mathiang said. "You just think about the ups."

Mathiang, who is beloved by his teammates for his upbeat personality, is quick to make Aussie jokes or speak in an exaggerated accent. He especially loves ribbing family friend Deng Adel, a sophomore at U of L who came to Australia from the Sudan and got to know Mathiang in Melbourne.

That's why he originally thought Saturday wouldn't be all that emotional for him. It's just not his personality.

Then he woke up Friday and was excited about the Notre Dame game. Then he started thinking about the significance of it.

"To be honest, I've seen Peyton (Siva), Luke (Hancock), all those guys have their senior days and they were pretty emotional," Mathiang said. "I was like, 'OK, man, it probably won't be like that (for me).' But I don't know, I woke this morning and I was excited. ... It's probably going to hit me after the game when you have to say your farewell."