One of the biggest college basketball storylines last season was Louisville Cardinals’s return to national prominence in coach Pat Kelsey’s first year with the program.
In Year 2, which starts Monday with a home game against South Carolina State Bulldogs, the question becomes: Can the No. 11 Cardinals compete for a national title?
Based on the initial expectations, many believe the Cardinals can. Louisville is ranked in the preseason Associated Press poll for the first time since 2019.
However, they are heading into the season with 10 newcomers. That includes freshman guard Mikel Brown Jr. and senior guard Ryan Conwell, who transferred from Xavier. Both were named to the preseason All-Atlantic Coast Conference first team.
Brown, a 6-foot-5 five-star recruit at point guard, and the 6-foot-4 Conwell, who has averaged more than 16 points per game and shot better than 40% from beyond the 3-point line in each of the last two seasons, will play alongside J’Vonne Hadley. The 6-foot-7 sixth-year player who averaged 12.2 points and 7.3 rebounds per game is the lone returning starter from last season’s 27-8 Louisville squad that reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019.
Conwell led the Cardinals with 26 points in Louisville’s 90-82 exhibition loss to Kansas Friday at home, but he missed on 14 of his 21 shots and went just 3-of-12 from beyond the arc. Brown also struggled, scoring 10 points going just 2-for-15 overall and 2-of-10 on 3-pointers.
Hadley, who played a team-high 29:49 on Friday, finished with 13 points and nine rebounds. He made all four of his shots, including a pair of treys.
As was the case with Louisville’s struggles last season, the Cardinals hit just 11 of their 38 3-point attempts, a staple of Kelsey’s offense.
Kelsey did not appear to be fazed by the poor shooting or the 20 turnovers the Cardinals committed in the exhibition.
“We’ll use it as a tool to get better,” he said. “The thing I told the guys is the one thing they don’t have to worry about is our team being really, really, really good. As long as, you know, we get better because of the things that we’ll learn from the tape.”
Louisville made just 32.8% of their 999 3-pointers last season, but that improved to 37.1% of their ACC-most 537 tries in 20 conference games. South Carolina State, meanwhile, held opponents to just 31% on 3-pointers last season.
The Bulldogs come off a 20-13 season that included sharing the MEAC regular-season title and falling 66-65 to Norfolk State in the conference tournament championship game.
Coach Erik Martin lost seven of his top eight players from last season, but sophomore guard Jayden Johnson was named the conference’s Preseason Player of the Year earlier this month. The 6-foot-1 point guard started 12 of the 32 games he played and scored 4.9 points per game. He put up a season-high 16 in a 79-72 loss at Georgia on Dec. 29.
Martin said Johnson’s game reminds him of a former teammate of his at Cincinnati.
“I’m not saying he’s Nick Van Exel, but he has some of Nick’s qualities,” Martin said at the MEAC’s Media Day earlier this month. “He just has game. I knew he had to get better in practice, but he was just someone who loved playing basketball.”
