Louisville coach Pat Kelsey on playing Kansas in Cards’ first exhibition game
Louisville takes on Kansas Oct. 24 at the KFC Yum! Center. “That’s sick,” Pat Kelsey said. “That is cool. That is what college basketball is all about.”
It’s that time of the year again: time to make some bold predictions for the upcoming Louisville basketball season.Pat Kelsey’s Cardinals enter 2025-26 ranked 11th in the preseason AP Top 25. On paper, they look like a team with Final Four potential.We’re expecting big things from five-star freshman point guard Mikel Brown Jr., sharpshooting transfer Isaac McKneely and German big man Sananda Fru.
You could fill the KFC Yum! Center with all the hype surrounding Louisville basketball entering Year 2 of the Pat Kelsey era.
The Cardinals aren’t wasting any time in trying to justify it.
U of L, ranked No. 11 in the preseason AP Top 25, is hosting No. 19 Kansas on Friday for what’s shaping up to be the most anticipated exhibition in program history. The record won’t reflect the result, but a win would certainly stoke fans’ lofty expectations entering 2025-26.
“I’m just interested for those lights to come on for the first time and (to) see how our guys react,” Kelsey told reporters Oct. 15. “To see a packed Yum! Center for an exhibition in October — I mean, that’s sick, man. That is cool. That is what college basketball is all about. That gets me fired up.”
As we hit the home stretch of an offseason that saw Louisville emerge as a legitimate Final Four contender on the strength of Kelsey’s roster construction, it’s time once again to make some bold predictions.
We did all right in 2024-25. Two of our five predictions hit. They were, of course, Reyne Smith breaking the program record for most 3-pointers made in a game (10 at SMU on Jan. 21) and the Cards getting a player on the All-ACC first team (Chucky Hepburn). But U of L fell short in checking off the most important item on the list: win an NCAA Tournament game.
What does Year 2 of Kelsey’s tenure have in store? We have to think bigger.
“We surprised a lot of people last year with how well we did and how quickly we made wins happen,” redshirt senior guard Kobe Rodgers told reporters in July. “I don’t think this year it’s going to be a surprise for anybody.”
Louisville’s first and only No. 1 overall NBA draft pick, Pervis Ellison, holds the program record for most points scored by a freshman with 510 across 39 games during the Cards’ run to a national championship in 1985-86.
Forty years later, Mikel Brown Jr. will pass Ellison en route to becoming U of L’s first one-and-done player.
Brown, a 6-foot-5 point guard from Orlando, Florida, was crowned Louisville’s 29th McDonald’s All-American after averaging nearly 30 points per game as a senior at DME Academy. He broke the school’s single-game scoring record twice last November with 43- and 50-point efforts in a matter of days. In June, ESPN tapped him as the No. 5 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft.
That mock draft was published before Brown earned all-tournament honors during USA Basketball’s undefeated run to a gold medal in the FIBA U19 World Cup this past summer. Across roughly 23 minutes per game, he led a team loaded with top-flight talent in scoring (14.9 points on 46.7% shooting) and assists (6.1 against 2.1 turnovers). He converted 20 of his 42 (47.6%) attempts from beyond the arc.
Kelsey and Brown have had ample opportunities to rein in the buzz. Instead, the coach and his star freshman have doubled down on their belief in each other.
“Mikel is ridiculously talented,” Kelsey said. “It’s his humility, it’s his intangibles, it’s his commitment to the power of the unit and his teammates that make him really special.”
“There’s going to be ups and downs,” Brown added. “It’s just (about) how you respond. That’s the biggest thing for me.”
Ellison started every game during his record-breaking freshman season, averaging 13.1 points across 30.6 minutes per contest. That seems doable for Brown during his brief-but-memorable stint with the Cards — even if he takes a backseat as a scorer some nights to the veterans Kelsey has surrounded him with.
Louisville hasn’t beaten an SEC school since taking down Mississippi State in the Baha Mar Hoops Bahamas Championship tournament on Nov. 25, 2021. Its last road win against the conference? An 89-75 victory over archrival Kentucky on Jan. 5, 2008, at Rupp Arena.
The Cards will get over the hump in 2025-26 by winning at least two of their three regular-season games against SEC members — vs. the Wildcats on Nov. 11, at Arkansas on Dec. 3 and at Tennessee on Dec. 16. It’ll be quite the statement, considering UK, the Razorbacks and the Volunteers advanced to the Sweet 16 or further in last season’s NCAA Tournament. And for what it’s worth: The formulas powering KenPom.com have U of L as a preseason underdog in all three tilts.
Louisville’s best chance to notch a W against the SEC, according to KenPom, is when Kentucky visits the Yum! Center for the earliest meeting in the rivalry’s storied history. The computers project an 82-81 Wildcats victory, and the win probability is split 51%/49%. Kelsey and Mark Pope’s teams will be far from finished products only two games into the season, so give me the Cards to eke out a back-and-forth affair with home-court advantage on their side.
Where does the second win come — in Fayetteville, Arkansas, or Knoxville, Tennessee? Both are tough places for visiting teams to play; and both opponents will have had time to rest and retool after marquee neutral-site games against Duke and Illinois, respectively. For now, I’m leaning toward picking U of L over the Razorbacks (and the duo of John Calipari and Kenny Payne) in an ACC/SEC Challenge matchup with no shortage of storylines.
How about another broken record? This time, it’s Isaac McKneely surpassing Taquan Dean’s high-water mark of 122 made 3-pointers during Louisville’s run to a Final Four in 2004-05.
Smith fell 16 3s shy of breaking Dean’s record last season. He missed four of the Cards’ final five games due to a high-ankle sprain. McKneely, meanwhile, was the only ACC player more accurate than the Australian from beyond the arc in 2024-25, finishing with a career-high 101 treys on 240 attempts (42.1%). He, like Smith, should have a neon green light in Kelsey’s fast-paced, trigger-happy offense.
Here’s the catch: U of L’s backcourt is loaded, and there are capable shooters up and down the roster. McKneely in all likelihood won’t play as many minutes as he grew accustomed to during his three seasons at Virginia, and there will be times when he defers to Brown and fellow transfers Ryan Conwell and Adrian Wooley — to name a few.
Still, it’s tough to argue against McKneely’s career clip of 42.2% (233 for 552) in a system that will generate a ton of looks. Kelsey tells the Poca, West Virginia, native he’s going to “unleash” him in 2025-26. As long as he stays healthy, he will put up historic numbers.
Sananda Fru was the top shot-blocker in Germany’s Basketball Bundesliga with 58 across 34 games during his fourth and final season playing for Löwen Braunschweig. No one in the ACC had more than 51 in 2024-25.
With Kelsey hoping to make defense Louisville’s “stinking identity” in 2025-26, expect Fru to assert himself early and often on that end during his first go-around in the Division I ranks. The 6-11, 245-pound forward/center will be so impactful, in fact, that he’ll land a spot on the ACC’s All-Defensive Team.
Fru, who turned 22 in August and boasts a 7-4 wingspan, offers more than just rim protection. He finished 2024-25 tied for fourth in the BBL when it comes to rebounding (227); and his 28 steals would have been the second most on Kelsey’s inaugural Cards roster. Not long after the big man arrived on campus this past summer, his new coach praised his versatility in pick-and-roll coverage.
“He’s 6-11 but can really move his feet and guard a guard on a switch,” Kelsey said. “We’re really excited. He’s doing a great job.”
Only time will tell how Kelsey decides to weaponize his self-described “three-headed monster” of a frontcourt, which also includes Aly Khalifa and Vangelis Zougris, and what kind of impact Kasean Pryor has on the rotation when he’s cleared to return from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. But Fru’s defensive chops will make him a go-to guy from the jump.
We’re not going to declare Louisville a Final Four team before the season tips off.
We will, however, predict the Cards will at least be one of the eight teams vying for a trip to Indianapolis. Sure, Kelsey is 0-5 as a head coach in the NCAA Tournament. But he’s never had a squad this talented or deep.
If most of our bold predictions to this point come true — and other members of the roster play up to their full potential — U of L will contend for an ACC championship and earn a favorable seed on Selection Sunday. And it has the experience and firepower to pull off the program’s first Elite Eight run since 2015. What happens next will be left up to the madness of March.
“I can’t tell you how excited I am to coach this team this year,” Kelsey said. “People talk a lot about the revival team last year. That’s last year; this group has a chance to be special.”
Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
