Kenny Payne shares update on Brandon Huntley-Hatfield's status

Louisville forward Brandon Huntley-Hatfield hasn’t played in over a week while dealing with a foot injury and was absent for the Cardinals’ 75-54 loss to Pitt at home Wednesday.

After the game, head coach Kenny Payne updated the sophomore’s status and where he is on the road to recovery.

“He’s still day-to-day. I’m hoping tomorrow I’ll get a definitive answer about where he is,” Payne said Wednesday. “It’s obvious we need him, but we’ll see.”

Huntley-Hatfield is averaging 7.5 points per game (fourth on the team) and a team-high six boards per game for the UL this season while shooting 48 percent from the field in 27.8 minutes per game.

His services are certainly missed, as Huntley-Hatfield has the potential to become a breakout star for the Cards under the right circumstances. He was highly touted coming out of high school, ranking as the No. 30 recruit in the 2021 class, per the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

Huntley-Hatfield was originally a member of the class of 2022, where he was ranked top-10 nationally. However, he decided to forgo his senior year of high school, head to college a year early and reclassify for the 2021 class.

He committed to Tennessee for his freshman season, where he averaged 3.9 points and 3.0 rebounds in only 12.5 mins per game last season as a freshman. He would enter the transfer portal before committing to Payne and the Cardinals.

The move sounded genius at the time, but with Louisville’s almost impressively bad 2-17 record, Huntley-Hatfield can’t help but take a back seat on one of the worst teams in the country. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say he could already be looking toward a new destination for the 2023-2024 season and prove why he was one of the nation’s best recruits.