Pat Kelsey’s latest Louisville roster looks built for a different kind of season.
The Cardinals enter Nov. 2 ranked 11th in the preseason Associated Press poll and picked third in the Atlantic Coast Conference behind Duke and Virginia, and they’ll open at home against Chattanooga with a group that has been reshaped heavily through the transfer portal. Louisville brought in only three freshmen and added eight transfers, a clear sign of how Kelsey and his staff wanted to attack this offseason.
That approach brought in some serious firepower. Former Kansas center Flory Bidunga, the No. 1 player in this year’s portal class according to 247Sports, headlines the arrivals. So does former Oregon point guard Jackson Shelstad, ranked No. 18 in the portal class, and North Carolina guard transfer Seth Trimble, who last week received a temporary injunction that makes him eligible this season.
Bidunga comes in as a preseason first-team All-ACC pick after posting 13.3 points, 9.0 rebounds and 2.6 blocks last season for Kansas. He joins 7-foot-5 Southern California transfer Gabe Dynes and five-star 7-foot-2 freshman Obinna Ekezie Jr. to give Louisville unusual size across the front line.
“There's no question that we are intentional this year as to how we built our roster, and there was an emphasis on defense and rebounding and improving our rim protection and our length and our overall physicality,” Kelsey said earlier this month at ACC media day.
“I think one of the hallmarks of our offensive teams the last two years is we've been elite shooting teams, and I think we still are a good, hopefully very good, shooting team. The length and athleticism that we added hopefully will make us an elite defensive and rebounding team as well.”
Shelstad should be central to making that all work. The second-team preseason All-ACC guard averaged at least 12.8 points in each of his three seasons at Oregon and set a career high with 4.9 assists in 2025-26. Louisville will lean on him to help run an offense that has to replace its top four scorers from last season, all of them guards.
Kelsey has already shown he can win in Louisville. He’s 51-19 across his first two seasons and has taken the Cardinals to the NCAA Tournament twice. The missing piece, though, is a March Madness victory - one he may now have the roster to chase.
Chattanooga arrives with something to prove after last season went sideways.
The Mocs followed a 21-win season in 2023-24 and a program-record-tying 29-win campaign in 2024-25, capped by an NIT title, with a 13-19 finish last year. That was the program’s first losing season since 2018-19.
Injuries played a role. Dan Earl said four players were sidelined for the entire season, which hurt Chattanooga’s size and rebounding. But he was clear that the problems didn’t stop there.
“The puzzle pieces didn't fit last year,” Earl said during the Southern Conference's media day. “We have to look in the mirror and figure out what we did wrong. We tried to correct it this year.”
The Mocs were picked to finish fifth in the conference, and Tate Darner is their lone preseason All-SoCon selection. A guard who had to spend last season playing forward because of injuries, Darner averaged 9.9 points and 4.4 rebounds as a freshman and is now back in his natural spot.
“Cerebral guy. Can make shots, crafty in getting downhill.
Can read the defense, make the right play,” Earl said. “We've seen his confidence build, he's gotten stronger, and we're looking forward to him taking a big jump this year.”
In Other News...
Louisville Fans Get More Bad News On Two Key Fronts
Louisvilles recruiting push took a hit when top-10 prospect Reese Alston chose LSU, leaving the Cardinals without a five-star addition in the 2027 class. It was another reminder that even when the basketball program is building momentum on the floor, the fight for elite talent keeps getting tougher, especially against a national brand that can close late.
The news did not stop there for Louisville fans, either. On the football side, the Cardinals will be without wide receiver Lawayne McCoy for Week 9 against Stanford because of injury, removing another option from the lineup as they prepare for a game that already carries plenty of importance. Taken together with a preseason basketball stretch that was unbeaten but still revealed issues in turnovers and perimeter shooting, it has been a rough few days of developments for a fan base looking for cleaner signs of progress. [Read more 🡒]
Louisville May Be Losing Ground In A Massive 5-Star Battle
DeMarcus Henrys impending decision has become one of the biggest recruiting storylines on Louisvilles radar, and the Cardinals remain firmly in the mix for a player who could change the outlook of the 2027 class. The five-star small forward is set to announce his commitment on Oct. 30, 2026, with Pat Kelseys program among four finalists alongside Kentucky, Arkansas and North Carolina.
The challenge for Louisville is that the race appears to be tilting elsewhere as the decision date nears. Recent reports and predictions have pointed to North Carolina as the likely landing spot, a development fueled by a Crystal Ball projection and a recruiting push that has reportedly included Michael Jordan, leaving the Cardinals in the spot no staff wants this late in a battle of this size. [Read more 🡒]
Louisville Has A Chance To Fix One Problem Against Stanford
Stanfords reboot under a new head coach and Andrew Luck as general manager has come with the expected growing pains, and one of the clearest signs has been a defense that has too often surrendered chunk plays. That gives Louisville a chance to clean up one of its own lingering issues, because the Cardinals offensive line has been uneven all season and needs a steadier showing if the offense is going to settle in and stay on schedule.
The other side of the matchup offers Louisville a separate test, though, with Stanfords Micah Ford coming in hot and needing to be accounted for on every snap. If Louisville can keep Ford from dictating the game and find a more reliable push up front against a defense that has not been getting many sacks or tackles for loss, it could be the kind of afternoon where one problem starts to look a lot more fixable. [Read more 🡒]