Louisville's gonna light it up

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In case you missed it yesterday, The Field of 68 announced a new partnership with On3/Rivals that’ll expand the site’s college hoops coverage. There’ll still be plenty of podcast, but now Rob Dauster and Jeff Goodman (supposedly) will write content for On3.

The good news? You can still be Goodman-free over here. Better news? The Daily will continue as is. So let’s get to Monday’s news.

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1. ‘It feels like Louisville is rolling again’

When Louisville finalized its roster this spring — it only needed to bring in three transfers unlike 2024 when it overhauled the whole roster — one thing was certain: The Cardinals loaded up with shooting.

In fact, that was the primary factor behind Jeff Goodman and Rob Dauster giving the Cards an A- in our Offseason Grades series.

Well, when those two hit Louisville on Monday as part of their Midwest college hoops road trip, what they saw only reinforced their grades.

Hey, when you watch Mikel Brown Jr. hit 25 consecutive 3-pointers, what else are you supposed to think? Besides, he’s not the only shooter on the squad. Brown (and everyone else Goodman and Dauster interviewed) refused to say who’s the team’s best shooter. So here’s an overview:

• Ryan Conwell: 41.3% at Xavier last season

• Isaac McKneely, 42.1% at Virginia

• J’Vonne Hadley: 38.1% at Louisville

• Adrian Wooley, 42.2% at Kennesaw State

Throw in Brown, and those five will attempt the majority of Louisville’s perimeter shots this season. And that should ensure an improvement on its 32.8% team shooting last season when nearly 48% of its overall field goal attempts were 3s.

Expect Louisville to play fast (90th in adjusted tempo last season; it’ll be faster this year), take plenty of shots, and play lots of guys. Injuries robbed the Cards of any depth last season. This season? Coach Pat Kelsey expects its to be a strength.

“You need depth. It’s a long season. It’s a grind. It’s a beat-down,” he said. “Last year we thought we had a lot of depth and then we had 400 guys go down with injury. This year we think one of the strengths of our team is our depth as well.”

Kelsey and the rest of the players spoke at length for a couple hours on Monday. The full show is below, but I’ll highlight some other notable nuggets.

• Why did McKneely leave one ACC program for another when he might see a drop in production? Well, the offensive scheme, for one. And the potential to play with winners. “He wanted all three of us (Conwell, Wooley). It wasn’t like we were gonna get two of these guys, and let the other one go.”

• Big man Aly Khalifa, who redshirted last season to recover from knee surgery, said “This is probably the best I’ve felt in my career. I lost about 55 pounds, added a lot of muscle. I’m physically and mentally feeling great.”

• Returning forward Kasean Pryor, who also missed most of last season due to a bum knee, also is pumped. "My knee has felt the best it has since my injury...I'm right where I'm supposed to be. Going to November, first game, second game, I'll be good by then." He’s still awaiting to be fully cleared for contact.

Also of note: Kelsey doesn’t have too many concerns about the frontcourt, which will primarily feature three bigs in Khalifa, Pryor and German big man Sananda Fru. Last season, the Cards had to rely on James Scott and Noah Waterman. So an additional body? That’s manna from heaven for Kelsey.

“It feels like Louisville is rolling again,” he said.

2. Four-star commits head to Xavier and … Siena?

It’s awesome when there are still surprises in college hoops recruiting.

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