Louisville Basketball: Chris Mack introduces new staff, previews 2018-19

Recruiting

A big area of focus for Chris Mack and his staff in the short time they’ve been on the job is recruiting. Within 24 hours of “unofficially” accepting the job from Vince Tyra, Mack and his staff were already reaching out to recruits and offering scholarships.

Within two days the staff had offered over a dozen scholarships to several big time players in the 2019 recruiting class including Cole Anthony, Josh Nickelberry, Ashton Hagans (now a UK commit), Anthony Harris, Keion Brooks, Rocket Watts Jr., Isaiah Stewart and plenty of others.

Not only was Mack reaching out to the Class of 19 recruits, but reportedly he reached out to one time Louisville target and five star prospect Romeo Langford who is down to 3 schools and nearing a final decision.

Mack also reportedly reached out to Courtney Ramey, a one-time Louisville commit who backed off of that when Rick Pitino was fired, and even made it back into his final 10 last week.

However, Mack talked about recruiting specifically touching in on targeting graduate transfers with the remaining scholarships the staff has left to use.

"“We’re going to be all over the country trying to identify kids that can help this program win games, and represent the program. Whether that’s grad-transfers, sit-out transfers, 2018 high school graduates, 2019 high school graduates, that’s what we’re aiming to look at.” “We have eight scholarship players, I think we are allowed to have 12. We’re not going to just add a 12th, if we’re fortunate to get 2-3 to commit, just because we want to have 12 in uniform. The worst thing you can do as a coach is make a recruiting mistake… We’re going to look at every option, JUCO, college, you name it, we’re going to make sure they are a right fit for our program.” “As you look at our team Coach Pitino had Anfernee Simons and Courtney Ramey coming to Louisville.. We aren’t recruiting those guys so I can use their names, they were coming here, and they were going to help on the perimeter. What an opportunity for a 5th year transfer to come in and play in the back court, same thing with the 2019 class.” “We’re going to look for the best available players, but we certainly need help in the perimeter.”"

I found it interesting to hear Coach Mack talk about the staff not recruiting Courtney Ramey, a kid who just recently put the Cards in his top 10.

More than anything what it tells me is that Mack is confident in the eight scholarship players he has returning. While he expressed several times the teams need for wing and perimeter help, Mack made sure he got the point across that the returning guys are his priority.

Mack also mentioned grad-transfers several times when talking about recruiting. With four open scholarships,  and Louisville’s top three leading scorers not returning in 2018-19, there is an immediate need for scoring and experience.

I wrote about guys like Joe Cremo (no longer being recruited), Mike Cunningham, Zach Johnson, Joseph Chartouny, and Ehab Amin just last week, and how they were already receiving serious interest from Louisville. As Mack alluded too, the staff is serious about pursuing players who have experience, but are most worried about finding the “right fit.”

The staff will have all spring and summer to find those players, but as Coach Mack mentioned, they won’t take players just to take them. I fully expect to see two or three grad-transfers, and maybe even JUCO players on this roster by the time practice opens up in September.