Blue Ribbon Profile
LOUISVILLE
LOCATION Louisville, KY
CONFERENCE Atlantic Coast
LAST SEASON 24-7 (.774)
CONFERENCE RECORD 15-5 (t-2nd)
STARTERS RETURNING/LOST 4/1
NICKNAME Cardinals
COLORS Black & Red & White
HOMECOURT KFC Yum! Center (22,000)
OFFICIAL WEBSITE GoCards.com
COACH Chris Mack (Xavier ’92)
RECORD AT SCHOOL 44-21 (2 years)
CAREER RECORD 261-110 (11 years)
ASSISTANTS
Dino Gaudio (Ohio ’81)
Luke Murray (Fairfield ’07)
Mike Pegues (Delaware ’00)
WINS (LAST 5 YRS.) 23-25-22-20-24
KENPOM RATING (LAST 5 YRS.) 7-9-38-23-9
2019-20 FINISH Lost regular-season finale.
Center courts at Louisville’s downtown arena, KFC Yum! Center, and at its on-campus practice facility, the Kueber Center, featured logos last college basketball season of a dunking cardinal.
Sporting the school colors of red and white and wearing a pair of black high-top adidas—the official outfitter of UofL athletics—the Cardinal caricature was an homage to the program’s past. In the 1980s, Louisville ballers were known as the “Doctors of Dunk” thanks to resident slam surgeon Darrell Griffith. Thus, the logos. Oh, and they also looked pretty cool.
No word on whether this season’s center logos will carry a “Don’t Know” emoji in school colors. That’s how fast everything can change for a college basketball program, even one that has enjoyed sustained success like Louisville.
A year ago, head coach Chris Mack presided over a program that again was among the nation’s best. Louisville opened ranked No. 5 and jumped to No. 1 in early December. The Cardinals didn’t last all that long (two weeks) in the top spot, yet still won a school-record 15 games in the Atlantic Coast Conference. They had veteran leadership in swingman Jordan Nwora (18.0 ppg, 7.7 rpg, .402 3PT), blue-collar dudes Dwayne Sutton (9.1 ppg, 8.2 rpg) and Steven Enoch (9.5 ppg, 5.6 rpg) and a long-distance sniper in fifth-year senior Ryan McMahon (8.7 ppg, .353 3PT). They had the pieces to play deep into March, but never got the chance.
Then the roster was cleaned out. Enoch and Sutton and McMahon exhausted their eligibilities. Nwora decided the time was right to chase his NBA dreams. Fifth-year guard Fresh Kimble’s one-year residency also ended while backup point guard Darius Perry (5.2 ppg, 1.5 rpg), a potential key piece, figured a new start was needed and transferred to UCF.
As the rest of the college athletics world wrestled with the coronavirus pandemic, Mack wondered how the Cardinals would replace six key guys that accounted for 75 percent of his team’s scoring and 66 percent of the rebounding. The percentage points of swagger the six brought? Priceless.
There were holes up and down the roster. For a team that likes to run a lot of combinations through the rotation—nine Cardinals averaged at least 15.5 minutes last season—moving forward wouldn’t be easy.
That’s OK with Mack. He understands that everyone sees what the Cardinals lost off last year’s team that finished No. 14 in the Associated Press poll at 24-7—the school’s best record through 31 games in six years—and wonders if they’ll be any good. Mack can’t wait to figure out ways to fill them.
Don’t count the Cardinals out just yet. They may not be a preseason Top 25 team in Blue Ribbon— seemingly an annual staple—but they may not be that far off.
“We’ve got a lot of new parts, but we’ve got some really good talented players,” Mack says. “And then we’ve got some guys that are going to have to make a jump in terms of being able to count on them. Getting that opportunity is something that all of them are excited about. They’ve got to make the most of it.”
Like many college coaches, Mack wished his group was further along than where it was in mid-September. The Cardinals were one of the first programs to bring all of their guys back in the summer—players were on campus for voluntary workouts by early June—but a shutdown after positive coronavirus tests wiped out a couple weeks of work.
Louisville’s was healthy later in the summer, but Mack didn’t cut it loose the way he normally would with a steady dose of individual drills—mainly focused on defense—and huge helpings of five-on-five. Because his guys went basically four months without supervised conditioning, Mack eased off on his preseason plan. It was too soon to go all-out five-on-five in late August and early September.
“Knowing the length of what this season could be and the possibility of them pushing back the start date [which the NCAA did to Nov. 25 a day after Mack spoke of the season], I haven’t been as consumed with getting to five-on-five,” he says. “I want to make sure our guys are at a good place physically.”
Practice eventually will be key for six players in their second seasons. Many among that half dozen were left on the outside of the rotation looking in last season, and for various reasons. Nobody was going to steal minutes from Nwora, a first-team all-league pick. He was too talented, and the other guys too timid. Nobody was going to charge up the depth chart when league play revved up in January. The young guys, for the most part, stayed young guys.
Now they have to be old.
“A year ago, for those guys, it was probably the first time in anybody’s careers where they didn’t necessarily get to play,” Mack says. “That becomes a challenge, to be the same guy in practice every day and learn and gain value in your reps even though you’re not playing.
“There’s a hunger from each of those guys to prove that they can play at this level and play well.”
Nobody’s more ready to eat than 6-7 sophomore swingman Samuell Williamson (4.4 ppg., 2.5 rpg., 15.5 mpg). A year ago, when discussing the pieces to his team, Mack belly laughed when asked if Williamson, a McDonald’s All-American from Rockwell, Texas, had the necessary tools to break into the Cardinals’ veteran rotation. The chuckle said it all—like, um, absolutely the kid had the chops.
Then he didn’t. Williamson made a few cameos and nice plays but never really cemented his spot. He was a fallback guy. If someone got hurt or got in foul trouble or the rotation just didn’t have it, Williamson would get the call. But he never blossomed, something Mack believes he’s ready to do this year.
“Everybody’s offseason has looked weird and felt different,” Mack says. “But Sam, more than any other player on our team, came back and his body was completely changed. He went from a kid who was really skinny and looked like he was still in high school to where he did not miss a single workout. He found whatever it was to work on. He looks a lot different than he did a year ago.”
Same for fellow sophomore David Johnson (6.3 ppg, 2.8 rpg). The 6-5, 210-pound hometown kid from down the road at Trinity High School showed flashes last season after battling through early injury. He was good, but there were other times when everything seemed to move way too fast for him. That will decrease, Mack says, as Johnson learns to understand how to change speeds. He doesn’t always have to hit 100 mph.
“That’s a part of David’s maturity—knowing when to go and when not to,” Mack says. “That decision-making is a huge piece to point guard play. Hopefully he can slow the game down a little bit, and he can use his strength and size and not just his speed and quickness to get to his spots.”
Mack believes Johnson will be better by the addition of 6-1 Radford graduate transfer guard Carlik Jones (20.0 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 5.5 apg, .488 FG, .409 3PT, .814 FT), who earned Big South player of the year honors last season. Bringing Jones aboard as a graduate transfer—Mack likes to lean on veterans—will do more than just keep the Cardinals old. It will keep Johnson from feeling like he’s got to handle everything. Jones, who as a kid attended Mack’s hoops camps at Xavier, becomes an instant plug-and-play guy. ESPN.com rated him the No. 1 graduate transfer in the country after a redshirt junior season in which he was the only player in the nation to average at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists.
“Carlik just has a confidence about himself that doesn’t get coached into you,” Mack says. “His teammates love him. He’s adapted seamlessly here. He’s going to make a lot of big plays for us this year.”
Jones is one of two graduate transfers. The other, Charles Minlend (14.5 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 1.8 apg, 1.0 spg) from San Francisco, shot across the program’s radar when recruit Jay Scrubb, the nation’s top prospect coming out of junior college, opted in late March for the NBA draft. Mack then needed a certain fit for the program. He found it in the 6-4, 220-pound Minlend, who the last two seasons earned second-team All-West Coast Conference and WCC All-Academic team honors. Last season he averaged 18.7 in three WCC tournament games, including 19 points and seven boards against mighty Gonzaga.
“Charles was a guy that we were impressed with,” Mack says. “Those guys are the type of grad transfers you want—guys who are mature and focused on being a great teammate. He has a lot of intangibles, a lot of leadership qualities that are going to help our young group out.”
LOUISVILLE
LOCATION Louisville, KY
CONFERENCE Atlantic Coast
LAST SEASON 24-7 (.774)
CONFERENCE RECORD 15-5 (t-2nd)
STARTERS RETURNING/LOST 4/1
NICKNAME Cardinals
COLORS Black & Red & White
HOMECOURT KFC Yum! Center (22,000)
OFFICIAL WEBSITE GoCards.com
COACH Chris Mack (Xavier ’92)
RECORD AT SCHOOL 44-21 (2 years)
CAREER RECORD 261-110 (11 years)
ASSISTANTS
Dino Gaudio (Ohio ’81)
Luke Murray (Fairfield ’07)
Mike Pegues (Delaware ’00)
WINS (LAST 5 YRS.) 23-25-22-20-24
KENPOM RATING (LAST 5 YRS.) 7-9-38-23-9
2019-20 FINISH Lost regular-season finale.
Center courts at Louisville’s downtown arena, KFC Yum! Center, and at its on-campus practice facility, the Kueber Center, featured logos last college basketball season of a dunking cardinal.
Sporting the school colors of red and white and wearing a pair of black high-top adidas—the official outfitter of UofL athletics—the Cardinal caricature was an homage to the program’s past. In the 1980s, Louisville ballers were known as the “Doctors of Dunk” thanks to resident slam surgeon Darrell Griffith. Thus, the logos. Oh, and they also looked pretty cool.
No word on whether this season’s center logos will carry a “Don’t Know” emoji in school colors. That’s how fast everything can change for a college basketball program, even one that has enjoyed sustained success like Louisville.
A year ago, head coach Chris Mack presided over a program that again was among the nation’s best. Louisville opened ranked No. 5 and jumped to No. 1 in early December. The Cardinals didn’t last all that long (two weeks) in the top spot, yet still won a school-record 15 games in the Atlantic Coast Conference. They had veteran leadership in swingman Jordan Nwora (18.0 ppg, 7.7 rpg, .402 3PT), blue-collar dudes Dwayne Sutton (9.1 ppg, 8.2 rpg) and Steven Enoch (9.5 ppg, 5.6 rpg) and a long-distance sniper in fifth-year senior Ryan McMahon (8.7 ppg, .353 3PT). They had the pieces to play deep into March, but never got the chance.
Then the roster was cleaned out. Enoch and Sutton and McMahon exhausted their eligibilities. Nwora decided the time was right to chase his NBA dreams. Fifth-year guard Fresh Kimble’s one-year residency also ended while backup point guard Darius Perry (5.2 ppg, 1.5 rpg), a potential key piece, figured a new start was needed and transferred to UCF.
As the rest of the college athletics world wrestled with the coronavirus pandemic, Mack wondered how the Cardinals would replace six key guys that accounted for 75 percent of his team’s scoring and 66 percent of the rebounding. The percentage points of swagger the six brought? Priceless.
There were holes up and down the roster. For a team that likes to run a lot of combinations through the rotation—nine Cardinals averaged at least 15.5 minutes last season—moving forward wouldn’t be easy.
That’s OK with Mack. He understands that everyone sees what the Cardinals lost off last year’s team that finished No. 14 in the Associated Press poll at 24-7—the school’s best record through 31 games in six years—and wonders if they’ll be any good. Mack can’t wait to figure out ways to fill them.
Don’t count the Cardinals out just yet. They may not be a preseason Top 25 team in Blue Ribbon— seemingly an annual staple—but they may not be that far off.
“We’ve got a lot of new parts, but we’ve got some really good talented players,” Mack says. “And then we’ve got some guys that are going to have to make a jump in terms of being able to count on them. Getting that opportunity is something that all of them are excited about. They’ve got to make the most of it.”
Like many college coaches, Mack wished his group was further along than where it was in mid-September. The Cardinals were one of the first programs to bring all of their guys back in the summer—players were on campus for voluntary workouts by early June—but a shutdown after positive coronavirus tests wiped out a couple weeks of work.
Louisville’s was healthy later in the summer, but Mack didn’t cut it loose the way he normally would with a steady dose of individual drills—mainly focused on defense—and huge helpings of five-on-five. Because his guys went basically four months without supervised conditioning, Mack eased off on his preseason plan. It was too soon to go all-out five-on-five in late August and early September.
“Knowing the length of what this season could be and the possibility of them pushing back the start date [which the NCAA did to Nov. 25 a day after Mack spoke of the season], I haven’t been as consumed with getting to five-on-five,” he says. “I want to make sure our guys are at a good place physically.”
Practice eventually will be key for six players in their second seasons. Many among that half dozen were left on the outside of the rotation looking in last season, and for various reasons. Nobody was going to steal minutes from Nwora, a first-team all-league pick. He was too talented, and the other guys too timid. Nobody was going to charge up the depth chart when league play revved up in January. The young guys, for the most part, stayed young guys.
Now they have to be old.
“A year ago, for those guys, it was probably the first time in anybody’s careers where they didn’t necessarily get to play,” Mack says. “That becomes a challenge, to be the same guy in practice every day and learn and gain value in your reps even though you’re not playing.
“There’s a hunger from each of those guys to prove that they can play at this level and play well.”
Nobody’s more ready to eat than 6-7 sophomore swingman Samuell Williamson (4.4 ppg., 2.5 rpg., 15.5 mpg). A year ago, when discussing the pieces to his team, Mack belly laughed when asked if Williamson, a McDonald’s All-American from Rockwell, Texas, had the necessary tools to break into the Cardinals’ veteran rotation. The chuckle said it all—like, um, absolutely the kid had the chops.
Then he didn’t. Williamson made a few cameos and nice plays but never really cemented his spot. He was a fallback guy. If someone got hurt or got in foul trouble or the rotation just didn’t have it, Williamson would get the call. But he never blossomed, something Mack believes he’s ready to do this year.
“Everybody’s offseason has looked weird and felt different,” Mack says. “But Sam, more than any other player on our team, came back and his body was completely changed. He went from a kid who was really skinny and looked like he was still in high school to where he did not miss a single workout. He found whatever it was to work on. He looks a lot different than he did a year ago.”
Same for fellow sophomore David Johnson (6.3 ppg, 2.8 rpg). The 6-5, 210-pound hometown kid from down the road at Trinity High School showed flashes last season after battling through early injury. He was good, but there were other times when everything seemed to move way too fast for him. That will decrease, Mack says, as Johnson learns to understand how to change speeds. He doesn’t always have to hit 100 mph.
“That’s a part of David’s maturity—knowing when to go and when not to,” Mack says. “That decision-making is a huge piece to point guard play. Hopefully he can slow the game down a little bit, and he can use his strength and size and not just his speed and quickness to get to his spots.”
Mack believes Johnson will be better by the addition of 6-1 Radford graduate transfer guard Carlik Jones (20.0 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 5.5 apg, .488 FG, .409 3PT, .814 FT), who earned Big South player of the year honors last season. Bringing Jones aboard as a graduate transfer—Mack likes to lean on veterans—will do more than just keep the Cardinals old. It will keep Johnson from feeling like he’s got to handle everything. Jones, who as a kid attended Mack’s hoops camps at Xavier, becomes an instant plug-and-play guy. ESPN.com rated him the No. 1 graduate transfer in the country after a redshirt junior season in which he was the only player in the nation to average at least 20 points, five rebounds and five assists.
“Carlik just has a confidence about himself that doesn’t get coached into you,” Mack says. “His teammates love him. He’s adapted seamlessly here. He’s going to make a lot of big plays for us this year.”
Jones is one of two graduate transfers. The other, Charles Minlend (14.5 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 1.8 apg, 1.0 spg) from San Francisco, shot across the program’s radar when recruit Jay Scrubb, the nation’s top prospect coming out of junior college, opted in late March for the NBA draft. Mack then needed a certain fit for the program. He found it in the 6-4, 220-pound Minlend, who the last two seasons earned second-team All-West Coast Conference and WCC All-Academic team honors. Last season he averaged 18.7 in three WCC tournament games, including 19 points and seven boards against mighty Gonzaga.
“Charles was a guy that we were impressed with,” Mack says. “Those guys are the type of grad transfers you want—guys who are mature and focused on being a great teammate. He has a lot of intangibles, a lot of leadership qualities that are going to help our young group out.”
