5 things to know about the Louisville Cardinals

1. Number one option

The best player, without a doubt, through the start of this young season for Louisville has been grad-transfer Carlik Jones. Starting at point guard for the Cards, Jones was rated as the top immediately eligible transfer player in the country, before waivers were granted to players like Oliver Sarr for Kentucky and Andrew Nembhard at Gonzaga. Measuring at 6’1″ and 185 pounds, Jones is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio and played his last three seasons at Radford, where he was a three-year starter.

Last season, he averaged 20 points, 5.5 assists, and 5.1 rebounds per game, while hitting nearly 41% of his threes. Jones picked up at Louisville where he left off at Radford, leading the Cards in points at 16 per game, assists at 5.6 per game, and pulling down 6.4 rebounds, which is good for second on the team. Jones has hit seven of his 14 attempted threes on the year and shoots 77.3% of his free throws. Jones did miss one game due to Covid, but returned in Louisville’s most recent win earlier this week.

2. Big time injuries

Coming into this season, a trio of seniors for Louisville were supposed to be the leaders this young roster needed. Unfortunately for Chris Mack, he’s been playing without two of his three seniors, and will be for quite a while. Carlik Jones sat out a game due to Covid protocols, but has since returned to action. The other two seniors, Malik Williams and Charles Minlend, have missed extended time, with neither having been available for any games so far this season.

Williams is a senior who has spent his whole career at Louisville, starting 35 games over his first three seasons. At 6’11” and 250 pounds, the Fort Wayne, Indiana native is an absolute force in the paint. In November, it was announced that Williams had injured his right foot and would be out for three months at a minimum. He averaged 8.5 points and 6.1 rebounds last season, and finished with 9 points and 7 boards against the Cats last year. Two days after announcing the Williams injury, Louisville announced that grad-transfer senior, Charles Minlend would be sidelined at least six weeks with a sprained MCL. Minlend was a starting guard for three years at San Francisco, where he averaged 14.4 points and 4.7 rebounds last season.

3. A Covid schedule

We’ve seen Kentucky’s schedule be adjusted a few times already in this young season due to Covid protocols, with the Detroit-Mercy game being taken off the schedule twice, the UCLA game turning into a game against North Carolina, and the upcoming South Carolina game having been postponed. Luckily for the Cats, it hasn’t impacted the flow of the schedule like it has a team like Louisville. Part of this is that Kentucky’s schedule adjustments weren’t due to Covid issues on their own end, it was mostly due to opponent caused situations.

On the flip side, the Louisville program was hit hard with a Covid outbreak, as Chris Mack was quoted saying at least 90% of his team had tested positive for Covid through a stretch where Louisville didn’t play for 18 days. The Cards had one game canceled and another postponed during their outbreak, which ended with a game against Wisconsin a week ago. Despite those issues, Louisville still sits at 5-1 on the season, with the Wisconsin game being the lone loss. The five wins came over Evansville, Seton Hall, Prairie View A&M, Western Kentucky, and Pittsburgh.

4. Youth vs youth

The point has been driven home enough this season that this year’s Kentucky team is one of the youngest teams that John Calipari has ever had in Lexington. We’ve heard the broadcasters mention in nearly every game, that with Keion Brooks out, Kentucky isn’t playing a single player that logged a minute for last year’s squad. What we haven’t heard about as Cats fans, is that Louisville is far younger than they usually are as well this season. A mixture of injuries and attrition from last year’s roster has Chris Mack looking to pull a John Calipari and have his kids grow up fast.

As I mentioned earlier, seniors Malik Williams and Charles Minlend are both out with injuries at the moment, and Louisville doesn’t have a junior on the entire roster, which leaves a bunch of freshmen and sophomores getting the bulk of the playing time to start the season. The Cards start one graduate-transfer senior, two sophomores, a redshirt freshman, and a true freshman. Off the bench is more of the same for Louisville, as the majority of the bench minutes go to two sophomores and another true freshman.

5. Battle of the Bluegrass

Chris Mack is looking to win his first game against Kentucky since becoming the Head Coach for the Cards back after the 2017-18 season. Now in his third season manning the sidelines for Louisville, Mack’s first match up with Kentucky was a 13-point Wildcat victory in the Yum! Center, as Tyler Herro and Keldon Johnson combined for 39 points and 12 rebounds to guide the Cats to a W. Mack’s second try to knock of the Cats was much tighter than the first and overtime was needed for the trio of Tyrese Maxey, Nick Richards, and Immanuel Quickley to overcome #3 ranked Louisville.

Mack is looking to reverse the trend that Rick Pitino set against Kentucky since John Calipari came to town. Coach Cal is 11-2 against the Cardinals as the Head Coach of the Wildcats, with the two losses both coming on the road by three points. Kentucky leads the all-time series by a record of 37-16, including winning the last three consecutive match ups. This afternoon will be the first time since the 2007-08 season that the two teams are both unranked going into the annual rivalry game.

Go Cats. Beat Cards.

@BrettBibbinsKSR