SAD NEWS: QB Jack Plummer has announced that he is leaving the Louisville Cardinals today another significant issue in the team….
SAD NEWS: QB Jack Plummer has announced that he is leaving the Louisville Cardinals today another significant issue in the team….
Louisville joins a list of programs to offer that also includes Alabama, Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Miami, Middle Tennessee, Troy, UAB, USF, and others. He is related to Alabama offensive lineman Elijah Prichett.
University of Louisville basketball coach Pat Kelsey and his new staff have been trying to fill the current roster, while also recruiting for the future.
The Cardinals offered one of the top prospects in the Class of 2025 on Thursday, extending an offer to Hudson, Ohio, Western Reserve Academy forward Niko Bundalo.
The 6-foot-11, 195-pound Bundalo now has a total of 18 scholarship offers, including one from Cincinnati last week. Bundalo transferred from Uniontown Green in Ohio to Western Reserve Academy for his junior year and helped his team to a 31-4 and to the National Prep Championship.
Bundalo plays for Wildcat Select on the adidas circuit. He averaged 31 points and 13 rebounds in the first 3SSB session in Omaha.
247Sports national analyst Eric Bossi said this about Bundalo after the event in Omaha last month: “Bundalo hit deep threes, he posted up, he even caught the ball and euro stepped around defenders at full speed. At 6-foot-9, maybe 6-foot-10 it was all really impressive stuff for a guy who burst onto the national scene around this time a year ago.”
It’s a total rebuild for the University of Louisville basketball program.
After winning just 12 games in two seasons, Louisville fired Kenny Payne as the school’s head coach on March 13. It came the day after Payne coached his last game, a loss to NC State in the ACC Tournament to end the season with an 8-24 record. Payne ended his career with a 12-52 record at his alma mater.
It didn’t take long for the players on the current roster to begin to enter the transfer portal. On March 18, the day the transfer portal opened, three players jumped into the portal, and by the time Ty-Laur Johnson entered the portal on April 2, the entire U of L roster was in the portal.
“Our fan base is absolutely dying for this program to be successful,” U of L athletic director Josh Heird said. “. . . You know, it’s a lot more than coaching basketball. This basketball program is the lifeblood of this city. One of the things I think is more important than anything else is, we’ve got to have somebody who is dying to coach this basketball program.”
Heird found his man on March 28 when he announced former Charleston coach Pat Kelsey as the new U of L coach.
“I was ready when my name was called,” Kelsey said last month about landing the U of L job. “Competitive excellence. I’ve been preparing for that interview my entire life, it’s the ultimate job, the pinnacle of my professional career.”
Kelsey got going right away, landing a pair of transfers from Charleston in the first four days on the job and then on April 3 adding Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year Terrence Edwards from James Madison. He also added Colorado guard J’Vonne Hadley on April 16, BYU center Aly Khalifa on April 18, Washington guard Koren Johnson on April 22, and Long Beach State forward Aboubacar Traore and Wisconsin point guard Chucky Hepburn on April 25.
Cardinal Authority will keep you posted on everything Kelsey and his new staff are doing with the roster. Below we look at the roster, departures, portal entries, portal targets, and new additions, most if not all of which we expect from the transfer portal.
