Louisville basketball: On paper, comparing the 2022–2023 squad to the 2023–2024 team.

The University of Louisville basketball program’s offseason can finally come to a close. All 13 of the scholarships have been handed out and all seven of the players who entered the transfer portal have announced their new collegiate destinations. Let’s take a look at how last year’s team compares to next year’s team.

The Louisville basketball team of the following season will be significantly deeper and more talented, based only on composite scores. There were a number of reasons why the previous season was so terrible; these will be covered in a later post. However, based on the team’s on-court talent, there wasn’t enough Power Five Division I talent for them to perform well.

Four of the seven players who entered the transfer portal—Devin Ree, Sydney Curry, Fabio Basili, and Roosevelt Wheeler—committed to schools that weren’t in the Power Five, confirming the talent’s existence. Devin Ree committed to Louisiana Tech, Sydney Curry committed to Grand Canyon University, Fabio Basili recently committed to the University of Texas-Arlington, and Roosevelt Wheeler committed to VCU.

The other three transfer players, Kamari Lands, El Ellis, and Jae’Lyn Withers, committed to Arizona State, Arkansas, and North Carolina, in that order. With the lifting of the IARP cloud, Kenny Payne’s recruiting acumen became evident on a massive scale.