25 Louisville basketball thoughts ahead of 2025: Pat Kelsey, Cards enter bulk of ACC play

Posted by Admin December 30, 2024 Basketball

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Here are 25 thoughts on Louisville basketball as Pat Kelsey and the Cardinals enter 2025:

Here’s what remains of U of L’s 2024-25 slate after facing North Carolina on New Year’s Day at the KFC Yum! Center, then traveling to Virginia for a 4 p.m. tipoff Saturday against the Cavaliers:

Note: Tipoff times and TV assignments are to be determined, unless noted otherwise.

Tuesday, Jan. 7: vs. Clemson, 7 p.m., either ESPN2 or ESPNU
Saturday, Jan. 11: at Pittsburgh, noon, ESPN2
Tuesday, Jan. 14: at Syracuse, 7 p.m., ACC Network
Saturday, Jan. 18: vs. Virginia, noon, either ESPN2 or ESPNU
Tuesday, Jan. 21: at SMU, 9 p.m., ACC Network
Tuesday, Jan. 28: vs. Wake Forest, 7 p.m., ACC Network
Saturday, Feb. 1: at Georgia Tech, 3:45 p.m., The CW
Wednesday, Feb. 5: at Boston College, 7 p.m., ACC Network
Saturday, Feb. 8: vs. Miami, 2 p.m., ESPN2
Wednesday, Feb. 12: at N.C. State, 7 p.m., either ESPN2 or ESPNU
Sunday, Feb. 16: at Notre Dame, 8 p.m., ACC Network
Saturday, Feb. 22: vs. Florida State, noon, The CW
Tuesday, Feb. 25: at Virginia Tech, 9 p.m., ACC Network
Saturday, March 1: vs. Pittsburgh, 6 p.m., ESPN2
Wednesday, March 5: vs. California, 9 p.m., ACC Network
Saturday, March 8: vs. Stanford, 2 p.m., ESPNU

As it stood Dec. 28, Louisville had only three Quad 1 games remaining — both legs of a home-and-home series with Pitt and a road trip to SMU.

Its Quad 2 games were vs. Clemson, at N.C. State and at Notre Dame.

The rest of the schedule, including 10 of its final 14 games, fell into Quad 3.

After needing a last-second shot from Noah Waterman to beat Eastern Kentucky in their final game of 2024, the Cards entered their matchup against North Carolina with a 33% chance of reaching March Madness on BartTo r vik.com.

Not very. At the time of publication, the ACC was dead last among high-major conferences in KenPom’s power rankings, with only six of its 18 teams among the top 50 in the website’s adjusted efficiency metric.

ESPN’s Joe Lunardi had the league sending only five members to the NCAA Tournament.

As of Dec. 27, U of L was +5,500 (55-1) on BetMGM to win the ACC regular-season title; good for sixth behind Duke (-275), Clemson (+500), North Carolina (+700), Pitt (+1,350) and SMU (+2,500).

The Cards’ odds of winning the national championship: +20,000.

With Louisville’s narrow win against EKU, it ended nonconference play 6-7 vs. the spread. Last season, it went 13-18-1.

The victory also snapped a three-game streak of the over hitting. The under has been the play out of the gate, hitting in nine of the Cards’ first 13 contests.

U of L, as of Dec. 27, was the only team in the ACC with four players ranking among the conference’s top 30 in minute share on KenPom.com.

They were Chucky Hepburn (81%, 12th), J’Vonne Hadley (76.1%, 24th) Terrence Edwards Jr. (71.8%, T30th) and Reyne Smith (71.8%, T30th). The next-closest player on the roster? Noah Waterman at No. 63 (58.6%).

Losing Kasean Pryor (knee) and Koren Johnson (shoulder) to season-ending injuries stings, but Aboubacar Traore should alleviate some of that soon after returning from a 10-game absence for a 5-minute, 15-second stint against Eastern Kentucky.

Kelsey has described Traore, a 6-foot-5 senior forward, as a “Swiss Army Knife,” and his team could certainly use one. The Ivory Coast native averaged 12 points, 8.4 rebounds and 4.5 assists en route to being named the Big West Conference’s Best Hustle Player in back-to-back years as a junior at Long Beach State.

“It’s just going to take a little bit of time to get (him) into a rhythm,” Kelsey said after defeating the Colonels, “but he’s going to be really good for us.”

As of Dec. 27, Hepburn, Edwards, Hadley, Smith and Waterman composed the Cards’ most-used lineup since Pryor went down during the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis championship game in late November. Per CBBAnalytics.com, it had a +13 point differential in 54 minutes played this season; averaging 136.3 points scored and 123.4 allowed per 100 possessions.

The title of most efficient lineup goes to Hepburn, Edwards, Hadley, Waterman and James Scott. Together, they were +33 in 24 minutes — 110.9 points scored, 77.8 points allowed per 100 possessions — as of Dec. 27.

Two other lineups have had more run than that one, however: Hepburn, Smith, Edwards, Hadley and Scott (46 minutes) and Hepburn, Smith, Hadley, Waterman and Scott (36 minutes).

U of L’s underclassman duo of Scott and Khani Rooths have appeared in every game so far, playing 49.1% and 30.5%, respectively, of the team’s available minutes.

Scott, a sophomore who has made nine starts, is averaging 6.3 points and 5.5 rebounds in 20.1 minutes. He leads the Cards in blocks with 10, and his 89.5% clip from inside the arc ranks No. 1 in the country.

Rooths, a freshman, is averaging 3.2 points on 32.6% shooting with 2.8 rebounds in 12.5 minutes off the bench. His best performance to date came during a Dec. 8 loss to Duke, when the IMG Academy product notched career highs in points (10) and rebounds (six) in 18 minutes.

It’s very likely that Kelsey’s inaugural Louisville team will break the program record for most 3-pointers attempted during a season, 906 in 2004-05. The question is, just how much can it improve upon its 29.9% clip during the bulk of ACC play?

Entering 2025, the Cards had made 10 or more triples in four of their last five games after falling into a 19-for-90 slump between Nov. 28 and Dec. 3.

“As a team, we don’t worry about those things; because we see each other in the gym getting work in,” Edwards said. “It would be different if guys were just practicing and going home and we’re missing a lot of shots, but that’s not the case here. (If you) come into the gym late at night, you’re going to see somebody.

“We just believe in our work, and we know the work will show.”

Louisville is among the six most experienced teams in the country on KenPom. But it’s also one of only six high-major programs with a continuity rating of less than 1%. What difference does it make?

As of Dec. 27, the teams with the most experience were a combined 54-18. Those with the least amount of continuity were 50-22.

Ranking fifth in the country in late December with 2.92 steals per game, Hepburn could break U of L’s single-season record of 86, which is held by Darrell Griffith (1979-80), Tick Rogers (1994-95) and Terrence Williams (2008-09).

The high-water mark was 90, set by Peyton Siva in 2012-13, but it had to be vacated.

Going off scanned ticket attendance numbers obtained via open-records requests, the Cards’ first six home games of 2024-25 (Morehead State, Tennessee, Bellarmine, Winthrop, Ole Miss and Duke) at the 22,090-seat Yum! Center drew an average crowd of 9,813. The average announced attendance, which U of L says represents the number of tickets sold, was 13,698.

During former coach Kenny Payne‘s disastrous tenure, average scanned ticket attendance was 6,504. The average announced attendance was 11,986.

Kelsey and his staff won’t have to build a roster from scratch through the NCAA transfer portal like they did last offseason, but this year will be an especially impactful one from a recruiting standpoint.

The Cards ended 2024 without a high school commitment in the Class of 2025; although they appear to be in good shape with Mikel Brown Jr., a consensus top-three point guard who visited campus in early December. Landing his commitment would be massive, but, unless they’re able to swing more players from the high school and/or the international ranks, they’ll hit the transfer market hard again.

With Kelsey nearing a year on the job, and his desire for the program to be a balance of talented freshmen and veterans, this is when we should start seeing the inroads he and his staff have made on the recruiting front pay off. At the top of their list should be courting 502 native Tyran Stokes, the top prospect in the Class of 2026.

Per 247Sports, Stokes was one of 19 players in the 2026 cycle with a scholarship offer from Louisville at the time of publication. To date, he and Jordan Smith, a five-star shooting guard who ranks among the top 10 juniors in the country, were the only ones who had visited the Cards in an official capacity.

Another name to monitor: Alijah Arenas, the son of former NBA star Gilbert Arenas, who as of early December was in the process of reclassifying so he can begin his college career in 2025, a year ahead of schedule. One of his sisters, Izela Arenas, is in her first season playing for U of L women’s coach Jeff Walz.

Louisville will say goodbye to at least six players at the end of the season: Frank Anselem-Ibe, Edwards, Hepburn, Smith, Traore and Waterman.

That number could increase to seven or eight if Pryor does not apply for a medical redshirt — or if he and Hadley do not take advantage of an NCAA ruling granting an additional year of eligibility to players who spent a season or more competing at the junior college level. And who knows what will happen when the portal opens.

Traore’s return will help some, but Kelsey has been open about Louisville playing at a slower tempo than he’s accustomed to in light of the injuries piling up. To keep everyone fresh moving forward, they must control the transition game.

As we saw in a 93-85 loss at Kentucky, during which the Cards were outscored 24-2 in fast-break points, it can loom large. Getting back and communicating on defense are Steps 1 and 2 to ensuring that doesn’t happen again. Protecting the ball is Step 3.

Offensively, U of L has had very little firepower in transition. As of Dec. 27, it ranked 336th in the country with only 5.8 fast-break points per game despite landing among the top 70 in turnovers forced with 14.6.

With the departures of Virginia’s Tony Bennett and, most recently, Miami’s Jim Larrañaga, Louisville has three games against interim coaches on tap in the 2025 portion of its schedule. If there ever was a time for the Cards to put an end to their nine-game losing streak against the Cavs, it’s now.

During that game against the Hurricanes, on Saturday, Feb. 8, U of L will recognize the members of its 2004-05 team to commemorate the 20th anniversary of its run to the Final Four in St. Louis. Can you believe it’s been two decades?

Five former Cards will get a shot at their old team during ACC play: Matt Cross (SMU), Ty-Laur Johnson (Wake Forest), Jae’Lyn Withers (North Carolina) and Brandon Huntley-Hatfield and Mike James (N.C. State).

For more about how they and the others who have transferred out are doing at their new homes, click here.

Having reunited with John Calipari as an assistant at Arkansas, Payne entered 2025 with the Razorbacks one win shy of surpassing his two-year total (12) at the helm of his alma mater.

The man he succeeded, Chris Mack, got off to a 10-3 start at Charleston — Kelsey’s old stomping grounds.

Meanwhile, Rick Pitino started this season was an 11-2 record at St. John’s.

For comparison’s sake with Kelsey, here’s how those men finished their first seasons coaching at U of L:

Payne (2022-23): 4-28, losing in the first round of the ACC Tournament
Mack (2018-19): 20-14, losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament
Pitino (2001-02): 19-13, losing in the second round of the NIT

Before the season, The Courier Journal dished out five bold predictions:

Louisville will have the ACC’s top offense
Traore will join U of L’s triple-double club
Smith will break the program’s single-game 3s record
A Cards player will make All-ACC first team
Louisville will win an NCAA Tournament game

How are they looking? Right now, No. 4 is the most likely to happen thanks to Hepburn, who entered 2025 with the team lead in scoring in addition to being one of the country’s best on-ball defenders.

U of L will notch its first season of 20-plus wins since 2019-20.

The ACC won’t be a cakewalk, but, in navigating a daunting nonconference schedule, the Cards showed they’re up for the challenge despite their roster limitations. Some tough stretches remain, but the sledding is only getting easier from here.

Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.