Louisville basketball: Cardinals equipped to be best in ACC

Duke and North Carolina will receive the lion’s share of the attention, but Louisville basketball may have the best mix of proven talent and new blood.

It’s not going to be simple to wipe away memories of the Rick Pitino era at Louisville, but Chris Mack is already off to a heck of a start at forging something new. In his first season as head coach of the Louisville Cardinals, Mack led a team that could easily have been excused for needing a season or two to right the ship to a 20-14 record and an NCAA Tournament berth (though their run there lasted all of one game).

For an encore, Mack’s squad has Louisville fans thinking bigger: As in winning the ACC and competing for a national championship big.

Those are no small tasks competing in the nation’s toughest college basketball conference, but the pollsters believe, with the Cardinals ranked No. 5 in the preseason AP poll — just one spot behind Duke and several ranks ahead of North Carolina. Here’s why you may want to reserve a spot on the Louisville bandwagon before it fills to capacity.

The returning talent is superb, especially in the frontcourt

While the Tobacco Road powerhouses have grown accustomed to seeing their best players depart quickly for the NBA, Louisville’s top star resisted the siren call of the pro game and returned for another go-round. Jordan Nwora averaged 17 points a game and led the team by averaging 7.6 rebounds last season, and he’s on just about everyone’s shortlist of national Player of the Year candidates. Nwora has already demonstrated the ability to score both inside and out and should only be scarier as a junior.

He’s not alone. Center Steven Enoch was the talk of the team’s first public intrasquad scrimmage and will be joined by Malik Williams — eventually, as the team captain is currently recuperating from a broken foot — to give the Cardinals a formidable 1-2 interior presence. Add in senior forward Dwayne Sutton and Louisville returns four of its top five scorers and all of its top four rebounders, a combo no other team with aspirations of winning the ACC can claim.

Incoming recruits are also top-notch

Any worries Louisville would suffer some sort of post-Pitino recruiting hangover should now be fully swept aside with a freshman class 247Sports has ranked as No. 12 in the country. It’s headlined by 6-foot-6 wing Samuell Williamson, who is expected to be an impact contributor from the time the season tips off.

As if the Cards needed any more muscle on the interior, the same could be true for Aidan Igiehon, a 6-foot-10 big who at the very least should be able to get his feet wet blocking shots and grabbing boards while Williams works his way back from injury. He showed a knack for doing both in high school.

If there’s a reason for pessimism, it’s that guard David Johnson, the third of Louisville’s top 100-caliber recruits, won’t be available until perhaps ACC play after shoulder surgery this summer, and the Cardinals could really use a spark in the backcourt. Still, there’s four-star shooting guard Josh Nickelberry, plucked from right under the Carolina schools’ noses, as it were, in Fayetteville, to supply some much-needed shooting.

A transfer might be the key to unlocking it all

Any deep run through the ACC and NCAA Tournaments almost inevitably require good to great guard play, the one area where the Cardinals may have some lingering questions. Christen Cunningham is gone, and no returning player recorded even two assists a contest last season. Johnson will help once healthy, but he’s more of a combo guard than a pure distributor and may be getting his baptism by fire in the heat of the conference schedule.

That’s why Lamarr Kimble could be so important. A graduate transfer from St. Joseph’s, the Philadelphia native averaged 4.5 assists a game as a sophomore (though dipped to nearly half that as a senior) while also chipping in more than 15 points per game over his last two full seasons. Nwora has already proven he can create his own shots, but if Kimble can get everyone else involved, the Louisville offense could ratchet up from potent to downright scary.

The Cardinals should be better in close games

Among Louisville’s 14 losses during the 2018-19 campaign were a handful of agonizingly close calls. They happened all throughout the season and came on neutral courts (a 77-74 loss to Marquette), on the road (a one-point defeat at Indiana and a three-point loss at Pitt) and at home. In one of the more memorable regular-season games in the country last February, Louisville had Duke on the ropes, down by 23 in the second half, only to fall apart down the stretch while Cam Reddish led the Blue Devils to a 71-69 comeback win.

“Learning how to win” is one of the more well-worn clichés in sports, but it got that way for a reason, and if anyone has figured out how to get over the hump in close games, it should be this Cardinals team with all of its veteran leadership. While the likes of Duke and North Carolina are figuring things out on the fly with another batch of super talented but untested athletes, Mack’s group is one that has literally been there before and should be one he can trust to close out games.

The best-case scenario is …

Nothing less than a regular-season or ACC Tournament title and a Final Four run. The Cardinals have a mix of experience and depth no one else in the conference can match, and it’s not hard to see them beating teams who want to slow things down or run. They have freshmen who could be key contributors as well, but unlike Duke and UNC, they don’t necessarily need them to be.

If Nwora takes another step forward, Kimble integrates smoothly and Enoch, Williams and company clean the glass, it’s hard to see too many weaknesses here. The preseason rankings might have the Cardinals a half-step behind Duke and in-state rival Kentucky, but by the time March rolls around, they might not be taking a backseat to anyone. You might want to impress your friends by talking them up now.

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