Projecting Louisville Men's Basketball's Strengths in 2025-26

While this offseason for the Louisville men's basketball program isn't quite the whirlwind that last season's was, there has still been a lot of moving parts.

For starters, six players saw their eligibility officially run out, and two more opted to hit the transfer portal. On the flip side, three players have opted to transfer to the Cardinals, while four more are joining as part of the Class of 2025. As of this writing, 12 of the 13 scholarship spots have been filled.

Coming off of an impressive year one under head coach Pat Kelsey, it's hard to imagine Louisville not taking a major step forward for year two. Many in the college basketball landscape agree, as the Cardinals have routinely fallen into the top 5/10 range of preseason top 25 polls.

While there's still roughly five months until the start of the 2025-26 college basketball season, with Louisville's roster likely complete, now we can begin a more intimate breakdown and analysis of the roster as a whole. So what are some of our very early projections as to the strengths of next season's team? Here are three below:

Guard Play

Of course, every position on the floor is important in their own way in the game of basketball. But as seasoned fans of the college game know, while the big man has had a bit of a modern renaissance, this level of hoops is undoubtedly a guard's game.

With Louisville, they have a very good case to be made that they have one of the best and deepest backcourts in the sport. Why? They have not one, not two, but *five* guards that are worthy of starting roles.

The Cardinals might be losing Chucky Hepburn, Terrence Edwards Jr. and Reyne Smith, but Kelsey and Co. did a great job in the portal, landing three guards who are top-20 transfers regardless of position. Xavier's Ryan Conwell, Virginia's Isaac McKneely and Kennesaw State's combined to average 16.6 points, 3.6 rebounds and 3.0 assists over 99 games played (with 98 starts) last season, and all three players received All-Conference honors.

All three of the aforementioned players will be in the mix to be the off-ball guard. As for who will take over for Hepburn's spot as the primary ball handler, that will be Mikel Brown Jr. - who has arguably the highest ceiling on the entire team. The five-star guard was the top point guard coming out of high school, and has shown in numerous instances over the last couple years how much of a playmaker he is. There's a reason he's already generating lottery buzz for the 2026 NBA Draft.

Then of course, you have J'Vonne Hadley. While he is more of a small forward than a true guard, he did have some off-ball responsibilities - and the roster does list him as a guard. Semantics aside, he's coming off of a season where he was the only Cardinal to start all 35 games, and averaged 12.2 points, a team-high 7.3 rebounds and 1.8 assists in the process.

There's also Kobe Rodgers, but he's likely going to be Brown's backup. Even still, he put together a respectable 2023-24 campaign with Charleston as a pseudo-starter before having to miss this past season due to injury. While there are going to be a lot of new roles in the backcourt for the upcoming season, Louisville's collection of guards is an elite one at the very least.

Three-Point Shooting

In this day and age of basketball, you've putting yourself at a major disadvantage if you don't have some semblance of team-wide three-point shooting. Fortunately for the Cardinals, there is more than enough of this to go around.

For starters, last season proved that Kelsey's fast-paced, five-out offensive system could work at the power conference level. While Louisville shot just 28.0 percent on three-point tries over their first 11 games of the 2024-25 season, they turned around to shoot 35.5 percent from deep over the final 24 games of the year. During the final 12 games of the regular season alone, Louisville was shooting at 37.9 percent clip on threes.

Considering 47.8 percent of their total field goal attempts for the season were threes, which was the 20th-highest rate in D1, simply making shots proved to be one of the biggest factors behind last season's second half surge. Like last season, Louisville certainly has the personnel to make threes at a high rate.

All three of Louisville's transfer newcomers shot it over 40.0 percent from deep last season. Wooley hit 42.2 percent of his tries, McKneely connected on 42.1 percent, while Conwell posted a 41.3 percent shooting mark. Not only did this trio combine for 273 made threes, McKneely's 101 makes trailed only Reyne Smith for the most in the ACC

This group will likely be responsible for the majority of Louisville's three point production, but multiple returners are legitimate threats from deep. For instance, Hadley shot it 38.1 percent from deep with 32 made threes. During the 2023-24 season - the last fully healthy year for Aly Khalifa, Kasean Pryor and Kobe Rodgers - Rodgers shot a blazing 45.0 percent from deep, Pryor was 35.2 percent, and Khalifa connected on 31.5 percent.

Then you take into account that Brown won the McDonald's All-American Three-Point Contest with an event record 28 points, Mouhamed Camara shot it 37.5 percent in various NBA Academy events over the last year, and Sananda Fru went 9-for-27 in the BBL this year, Louisville has a plethora of options. In fact, the only player who is a non-factor on the perimeter in Vangelis Zougris.

If Louisville can avoid the slow shooting start that they had in year one under Kelsey, then the 2025-26 team has the potential to set some program three-point shooting records.

Increased Playmaking Potential

In a vacuum, not having Chucky Hepburn for next season following the conclusion of his collegiate career is a big deal. He was the epitome of a floor general, and there was a clear difference in Louisville's offensive and defensive capabilities whenever he was not on the court.

That being said, barring another situation where the injury bug decides to bite down hard, the Cardinals' playmaking potential on both ends of the floor should be in line to take a step forward.

On the offensive side of things, Louisville's team assist rate finished at 51.3 percent - which ranked just 193rd in Division I. This was mainly due to the fact that, of the Cardinals' nine available players (sans Johnson, Khalifa, Pryor and Rodgers), just four had double-digit assist rates.

Amongst the five players on Louisville's roster that played a full 2024-25 season, four of them had double-digit assist rates. Wooley leads the pack at 22.6, McKneely posted a 19.1, Conwell finished with a 14.9 and Hadley had a 10.2.

Then you add Brown, Khalifa, Pryor and Rodgers to the mix. During the 2023-24 season - the last fully healthy season for the latter three - Khalifa has an insane 32.8 assist rate, while Rodgers posted a 17.7 and Pryor a 13.9. While Brown will be making the jump from the high school ranks, and will likely not be nearly as much of a floor general as Hepburn was (at least right out of the gates), he was one of the best passer in all of high school hoops.

Defensively, Louisville ranked 246th in block rate (8.1) and 217th in steal rate (9.2). Why? Of their nine available players, only five had a block rate of 3.0 or better or a steal rate of 1.5 or better. For the 2025-26 season, they should be in line for improvement when it comes to generating both.

Of those five players that played a full 2024-25 college season, four of them had a block rate of 3.0 or better or a steal rate of 1.5 or better. Wooley had a steal rate of 2.4, Conwell a 2.3 and McKneely a 1.5, while Khani Rooths had a block rate of 2.9.

Then with the trio of Khalifa-Pryor-Rodgers, all three fit that category from the 2023-24 season. Pryor had a block rate of 5.6 and a steal rate of 3.9, Khalifa had a block rate of 3.3, while Rodgers had a steal rate of 3.3.

Sure, the playmaking potential on both ends of the court all depends on how they play off of each other. But in theory, Louisville could be in line to see a massive boost in assists, blocks and steals.

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