SAD NEWS: NBA center Emmanuel Okorafor has announced that his is leaving Louisville Cardinals according to….

Following the dismissal of head coach Kenny Payne, the Louisville men’s basketball team is expected to have a busy summer via the NCAA transfer site.

While they wait for a successor to be appointed, several of the players from the Cardinals’ 2023–24 roster are expected to at least test the market. When that occurs, the person who is hired will probably use the gateway to reorganize the roster in a way that suits them.

After Payne was fired, Josh Heird, the director of athletics at the University of Louisiana, advised players to “sort through what’s best for you.” He urged students to consider questions other than basketball, such as “Have you enjoyed the university? Have you have fun exploring the city? Have you found the accommodations enjoyable and everything that we provide?

Heird added, “If the response is, ‘Yes,’ then please be patient with us and, ideally, you’re open to speaking with the person in charge of this basketball program.” If the answer to those questions is “No,” you’ve most likely already made up your mind.

The portal is available from March 18 until May 1.

Throughout the offseason, bookmark this page to keep track on who the Cards are adding from and losing to the portal.

A representative for the team verified that Danilo Jovanovich accessed the portal on Wednesday.

Despite just playing in one Division I game as a freshman at Miami, the 6-foot-8, 220-pound sophomore forward was one of Payne’s three portal additions from the previous offseason.

Although he was on of the Hurricanes’ scout team during their run to the 2023 Final Four, he was still a smaller producer for the Cards.

Jovanovich, a native of Milwaukee, did not score until a game against Kentucky on December 21. Despite averaging just 8.3 minutes per game, he failed to score in 12 of his 20 outings (five of which were starts).

He finished with a total of 22 rebounds, five assists, four turnovers, two blocks, two steals, and 24 points on 9 of 25 shooting. In a loss to Wake Forest on January 20, he scored a career-high five points, which was his best effort of the season.

A team representative confirmed that Dennis Evans logged into the site on Tuesday.

Due to an unexplained condition, Louisville announced in January that the 7-1, 215-pound freshman center would “not be medically cleared to compete” at the program indefinitely.

Eric Bossi of 247Sports said on Tuesday that he will be “good to go at his next stop.”

Prior to missing time due to what the team termed as a shoulder ailment, Evans, a top-five center in the 2023 recruiting cycle, participated in seven games (five of which he started) for the Cards. His final game was a five-minute stint in a victory over Bellarmine on November 29.

Following the team’s December break for the holidays, Evans returned to his hometown of Riverside, California. However, he did not come back to the university when 2024 arrived, and he did not sit on the bench in a game against Virginia on January 3.

U of L said in a statement the next day that Evans was not medically cleared to compete “moving forward.” An athletics department spokesman said in a follow-up statement that they did not “foresee his status changing with the institution.”

He was absent from all 20 of the team’s season-ending games.

Over 64 minutes (9.1 per game), Evans finished with 11 points on 5-for-8 shooting, six rebounds, and five blocks. During U of L’s season-opening victory over UMBC, he scored seven of those points while playing a game-high 16 minutes.

JJ Traynor, the only senior on Louisville’s 2023–24 roster, logged into the site on Wednesday, according to a team representative.

The 6-8, 190-pound native of Bardstown, whose father, Jason Osborne, was a player for the Cards, may be granted a medical redshirt and will have at least one more year of eligibility left.