-Jim Root
Key Returners: Malik Williams, David Johnson, Samuell Williamson, Quinn Slazinski
Key Losses: Jordan Nwora (pro), Dwayne Sutton, Steven Enoch, Ryan McMahon, Lamarr Kimble
Key Newcomers: Carlik Jones (Radford), Charles Minlend (San Francisco), D’Andre Davis, JJ Traynor, Gabe Wiznitzer, Jae’Lyn Withers (redshirt)
Lineup:
Outlook: In just his second season at the helm, Chris Mack had Louisville headed towards a possible 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament, sitting at 21-3 (12-1) in early February. But then a strange pall fell over the team, including an abominable two-game stretch from the sometimes-mercurial Jordan Nwora, and the Cardinals ended the season losing four of seven, needing to right the ship in the ACC Tournament to have any sort of momentum entering the Big Dance. They finished 309th in consistency, per Haslametrics.com, underscoring the unpredictable nature of their performances, which was especially surprising for a veteran-laden team.
Mack enters Year Three at Louisville with a relatively clean slate. He has brought in the entirety of the roster save for senior center Malik Williams, and his terrific 2019 recruiting class (ranked 12th nationally by 247 Sports) should emerge into key roles at multiple positions. True to form, Mack also successfully mined the portal for key additions, and although the Cardinals have a ton of player turnover (just 26.8% of minutes return, per BartTorvik.com), Louisville has the upside to be a Final Four contender once again.
There’s some risk, though. The Cards are banking on major contributions from grad transfers Carlik Jones (Radford) and Charles Minlend (San Francisco). Jones, the reigning Big South Player of the Year, is especially important, and he’s blossomed from a steady floor leader and complementary scorer into a bona fide bucket-getter and offensive maestro over the past three years. He’s tremendous in the pick-and-roll (90th percentile, per Synergy), and he became a true off-the-dribble shooting threat as a junior. The struggles of fellow Big South-to-ACC defector Christian Keeling are cause for concern, though:
In Keeling’s defense, he found his rhythm in ACC play (shot 40.6% from deep) and was a legitimately positive player for the majority of the conference season. Jones is a better player than Keeling was, as well, and he has a more natural role translation as a primary ball-handler; at 6’3, Keeling was an undersized scoring guard in a power conference.
Minlend, meanwhile, is a big, physical wing who led an impressive Dons squad with his aggressive drives and stout defense. He was a surprise commitment after not including the Cards in his “final list” prior to his decision, but JUCO transfer Jay Scrubb’s NBA defection put Mack into recruiting overdrive to find a veteran wing presence.
Mack is renowned for tweaking his offensive approach to fit his players – both year-to-year and in-season – and he’ll surely do the same to put Jones and Minlend in positions to succeed. It helps that he’ll have two emerging perimeter stars to turn to, as sophomores David Johnson and Samuell Williamson ooze potential. Johnson is a lead guard with tremendous size, making him a perfect complement to Jones; the two can rotate primary ball-handling duties while the other focuses more on shouldering the scoring burden. Johnson exploded in a huge win at Duke last season, going for 19 points, seven assists, and four rebounds and repeatedly cooking vaunted defender Tre Jones. Unsurprisingly for a freshman who missed most of the preseason with injury, he struggled with consistency, but he’s a potential all-conference guy with such a void of production on the roster.
Williamson never really found his stride as a freshman on a team with plenty of veteran scorers, but the lanky wing should be far more comfortable this time around with a clearer role in front of him. As mentioned, Mack will run specific actions to put him in advantageous spots, and he showed the ability to be a dangerous cutter when the play isn’t designed for him:
I already tagged Williamson as a major breakout candidate here on our site, so I won’t belabor that point.
Williams is the last-discussed of the team’s key players, but he may be the most valuable. A “heart-and-soul” kind of leader who plays with a ton of emotion (in a good way), Williams is a dominant rebounder and will be the anchor of Mack’s man-to-man defense. He platooned with the now-departed Steven Enoch, but he should earn the majority of minutes with Aidan Igiehon (the “Irish Hulk”) getting bursts of minutes off the bench. Williams has the added bonus of being able to knock in an open triple (57/181 for his career, 31.5%), forcing opposing bigs to take an extra step out of the paint and helping the Cards’ spacing.
Filling in the minutes around that primary group of Williams, the grad transfers, and Johnson/Williamson will be crucial. Igiehon, forward Quinn Slazinski, and guard Josh Nickelberry barely saw the court last year, while freshmen Jaelyn Withers (redshirt), D’Andre Davis, JJ Traynor, and Gabe Wiznitzer are obviously D-I newbies as well. All but Slazinski were top-150 recruits, though, so the talent is not lacking. Instead, it’s more a question of “which guy(s) will emerge?”
Fortunately, the key offensive weapons are largely figured out, so that question will probably be answered by who best meshes with Mack’s defensive scheme. He runs a modified pack line, taking away the rim as an option and forcing foes to hit jumpers over the top. To wit: per hoop-math, Louisville’s defense allowed the 9th-fewest attempts at the rim last season. Like Virginia, the Cards’ defense also takes away transition opportunities, and forcing teams to execute in the half court helped them rank 17th in defensive shot quality, per Dribble Handoff. Slazinski and Nickelberry’s experience, however slight, likely give them an edge over Davis and the extremely thin Traynor, with the bouncy Withers being the wild card.
Bottom Line: The range of outcomes for this Louisville team is fairly wide given the amount of unproven-in-the-ACC commodities it will rely on, but the combination of talent and terrific coaching at a powerhouse program bodes well. Jones and Johnson should be a formidable backcourt tandem, while Williams and Williamson will be nightly matchup problems with their size and skill sets. With Mack at the helm, we’ll slant towards the optimistic end of the spectrum.