Through Oct. 31, Sports Illustrated will count down its preseason college basketball Top 25 with overviews of each team. Here are the full rankings so far.
Even in an era where it’s easier than ever to rebuild quickly, we shouldn’t overlook just how rapidly Pat Kelsey made Louisville basketball relevant again. He inherited a dumpster fire from Kenny Payne, who won a combined 12 games in two seasons … and in Year 1 won 27 games, went 18–2 in the ACC and got back to the NCAA tournament. The next step is NCAA tournament success, but the fact we’re even talking about a potential deep March Madness run this soon after the program appeared in disarray says everything about the job Kelsey has done. The city of Louisville is buzzing about its basketball team again, the roster is significantly more talented than it was last season and it’s not unrealistic to expect the Cards to seriously contend with the best of the best in the country.
Projected Starting Lineup
PG: Mikel Brown Jr.
SG: Ryan Conwell
SF: Isaac McKneely
PF: J’Vonne Hadley
C: Sananda Fru
Key Reserves: G Adrian Wooley, W/F Kasean Pryor, C Aly Khalifa
Key Additions
After getting the Louisville job, Kelsey quickly zeroed in on what he believed to be the Cardinals’ next great point guard: five-star recruit Mikel Brown Jr. Kelsey was relentless in his pursuit and eventually landed Brown on Jan. 1, setting the tone for a monster few months of recruiting success for the Cardinals. Brown may have more momentum than any prospect in his class. He had a great final summer on the AAU circuit, followed that up by dominating multiple senior all-star games this spring and continued to boost his early NBA draft stock by showing well at the FIBA U19 World Cup. He’s a potential college star who has established himself as a clear one-and-done talent.
Louisville then went into the portal and loaded up to surround him in the backcourt. Ryan Conwell was one of the top players in the portal, having averaged 16.5 points per game last season on an NCAA tournament team at Xavier. He’s an elite shooter with real game off the bounce. One-upping him from deep might be Isaac McKneely, who has haunted ACC coaches for three years as an off-ball sniper at Virginia. He made 101 threes at 42% last season and might be the most dangerous movement shooter in the country. After seeing how Kelsey maximized Reyne Smith a year ago, it’s easy to be excited about how he can creatively deploy McKneely. Meanwhile, Adrian Wooley might be getting overshadowed because of all the other backcourt talent here, but he’d be a starter on plenty of high-major teams. He’s relentless pressuring the rim and has great size at 6' 5".
Up front, Louisville has tons of options to mix and match. The Cardinals went international for two key pieces in Sananda Fru and Vangelis Zougris. Fru has great size at 6' 11", impressive mobility and fluidity and soft touch. Zougris is more of an energy big who battles on the boards, but his ability to move his feet and guard on the perimeter will be valuable. Kasean Pryor and Aly Khalifa each redshirted last season and will also heavily factor in up front. Khalifa is a true x-factor: He’s the best passing big in the country and could be less of a defensive liability now that he’s healthier than he was at BYU. Expect Kelsey to cycle through bodies regularly (especially early in the season) and tinker with different lineup constructions to find the best combinations up front. Swiss Army knife J’Vonne Hadley’s (one of the most underappreciated role players nationally) ability to play up and down the lineup creates a lot of flexibility.
Causes for Concern
Perhaps the best comparison for this Louisville roster build and the style Kelsey wants to play is Nate Oats’s Alabama teams. When Oats’s Tide teams have been at their best, they’ve had elite defensive personnel, from rim protectors like Charles Bediako and Clifford Omoruyi to versatile game-wreckers like Herbert Jones. When Alabama hasn’t had that, it has had high-variance squads capable of shooting anyone out of the gym but also not consistent enough to truly ascend into a Top 10 team nationally. The latter is the scenario I fear with Louisville. This is a small backcourt (especially if Kelsey plays Brown, Conwell and McKneely together) and a frontcourt that lacks the kind of elite rim protection that can really anchor a top defense.
The Bottom Line
If you’re making a list of college basketball’s League Pass teams (i.e., the squads you’d pay extra to watch every night), Louisville would be on it. Kelsey’s style of play paired with this amount of shooting and playmaking could make the best version of this team an absolute joy to watch. Whether a team this reliant on the three that might not be great on the defensive end can seriously contend for a national championship remains to be seen, but it feels foolish to bet against Kelsey after his Year 1 magic.
More College Basketball on Sports Illustrated
Listen to SI’s new college sports podcast, Others Receiving Votes, below or on Apple and Spotify. Watch the show on SI’s YouTube channel.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Sports Illustrated’s Men’s College Basketball Preseason Top 25: No. 8 Louisville.