Louisville basketball’s eye-popping offseason continues to turn heads nationwide as the Cardinals are emerging as a real Final Four contender. Recently, Louisville was ranked No. 10 in the nation in FanSided’s way-too-early rankings following Milan Momcilovic’s commitment decision to Kentucky, and yesterday the Cards got more attention with The Athletic’s way-too-early rankings.
Louisville’s lineup even without Milan Momcilovic should still have fans dreaming big
The Athletic’s CJ Moore recently updated his rankings after Momcilovic’s decision, and Louisville fans will be quite pleased with where the Cardinals fell. With Kelsey given the task of rebuilding his entire roster, the Cardinals appear to be right where they want to be, and Moore gives Louisville fans hope as he appears impressed with the roster Kelsey built, but he also raises one question.
The Athletic raises one concern about Pat Kelsey’s Cardinals
The Cardinals are ranked No. 11 in Moore’s rankings, which would put them right where they were ranked in last year’s rankings to start the season. Louisville continues to be a unanimous top-15 team in these way-too-early rankings, and while Moore admits he is a little shy to be high on Louisville because of last year’s team, he also makes it clear this team has a lot of upside.
I’m a little gun-shy about falling too hard for Louisville because last year’s team didn’t live up to what I believed it could be. Luckily for Pat Kelsey, he won enough in the first two years and did so much better than the staff that preceded him that he was gifted a huge budget to buy another contender. Similar to Texas, everything makes sense on paper. Kelsey got proven commodities at point guard and center. He took an upside swing on the wing in Karter Knox, who should benefit from a system that encourages letting it fly from deep. Alvaro Folgueiras is the kind of versatile, pass-happy big man who is ideal for Kelsey’s system.CJ Moore
The college basketball insider then mentions the Cardinals’ biggest addition, Flory Bidunga, and, when discussing the Kansas transfer, he makes it clear that Bidunga has a dominant presence on defense but raises concerns about Louisville’s defense as a whole…