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Around the ACC: Where does Louisville basketball’s backcourt rank?

By Jacob Lane

GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA - MARCH 12: A general view of center court prior to the quarterfinals round of the 2020 Men's ACC Basketball Tournament at Greensboro Coliseum on March 12, 2020 in Greensboro, North Carolina. The remainder of the tournament will be played with only essential tournament personnel, limited school administrators and student-athlete guests, broadcast television and credentialed media members in attendance due to concerns over the possible spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19). (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images)
GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA - MARCH 12: A general view of center court prior to the quarterfinals round of the 2020 Men's ACC Basketball Tournament at Greensboro Coliseum on March 12, 2020 in Greensboro, North Carolina. The remainder of the tournament will be played with only essential tournament personnel, limited school administrators and student-athlete guests, broadcast television and credentialed media members in attendance due to concerns over the possible spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19). (Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images) /
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Louisville basketball’s backcourt could be even better in 2020.

Despite the ACC being in what many deemed a “down year” in the 2019-20 season, Louisville basketball thrived both in-conference and out of conference, finishing the shortened season with 24 wins and a tie for second place.

While Louisville was fortunate enough to return six of their top eight scorers from the 2018-19 season, including 2019’s Most Improved Player of the Year in the ACC, Jordan Nwora and rising big man, Steven Enoch, most teams across the league weren’t as a lucky.

In fact, out of the top 20 scorers from the ACC in 2018-19 only six returned to their respective programs this past season and it resulted in one of the biggest down years the league has had in the last few seasons.

Due to the pandemic we obviously didn’t get a chance to see how the postseason shaped out by all means it looked like the conference was set to have its lowest number of team’s in the field of 68 in quite some time.

Despite losing so much talent from the year prior, including stars like Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett, De’Andre Hunter, Ky Bowman, Cam Johnson, etc. etc. new names emerged but the usual suspects competed for bragging rights at the top. While the rest of the league struggled to win games and get in a place to make the tournament, many teams did see new stars and role players emerge in place of their losses from year prior.

The top 20 scorers in 2019-20 featured 16 new names, headline by Elijah Hughes at Syracuse,  as multiple players reaped the benefits of stepping into the role left behind by star players. Heading into 2019-20 the league will lose several players among that group as they do each year, but seven of the top 20 scorers returning, we could see teams rise to the top of the ACC.

Without a normal offseason and the odds of some sort of interruption to play (whether that be games played with no fans or other scenarios), it’s going to be a weird season in 2020-21. It’s a bit trickier to project how the landscape of the ACC will shake out, but the league as a whole should bounce back after a rough year.

While there’s still plenty of time before the start of the season and a few key decisions will be made between now and the first games, we wanted to take a closer look at the landscape of the ACC and see where Louisville ranks.

In this piece, we’ll specifically look at the back court’s of each of the ACC teams and rank them based on expectations for 2020. Where does Louisville basketball’s backcourt rank? We take a closer look.

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