Louisville basketball has become one of the nation’s elite programs thanks to an excellent cast of players through the years. We’ll countdown our list of the top 15 players to put the Louisville logo on their chest, and don the red and black since the year 2000.
As you may or may not know, summertime in sports is quite boring. Once Louisville baseball’s season ends, fans are left out to dry waiting for fall sports like soccer, and of course football.
During that summer time period, one of the litany of things that keep fans like yourself entertained are lists. That’s where publications like Athlon Sports, ESPN, CBS, NBC and a handful of others spend the majority of their time, when there is no constant flow of news.
Being as how we are a site for the fans, by the fans, we decided to jump into this list season, and spice it up a little. For the next three to four weeks, we are going to take a look back at the Louisville basketball program. We all love a good list, and that’s exactly what we’re bringing you. Our writers here at Big Red Louie will be putting together the top 15 players to play for the Louisville basketball program since the year 2000.
When creating this list there were a few things we decided on. One, we will not take into consideration a players pro career. While the Cards have had several players go on to have successful NBA careers, especially with Donovan Mitchell & Terry Rozier, most of them have not achieved the level of “success” that fans expected based off their collegiate careers. That doesn’t mean a career overseas doesn’t matter, that’s not what were saying. But we feel it’s best to base this all of a players time at Louisville.
Secondly, we don’t care how long these players were at Louisville. The Cards have been lucky enough to have several big time transfers, and grad-transfers, put the bird on their chest and leave a long lasting legacy in the Ville. One year vs. four years, it doesn’t matter.
Lastly, this is all based on opinion. There is no secret formula we used to track metrics or PER’s, or any other made up “leaky spark tube” analytics. Trying to narrow down the list of the top 15 players from the a group of over 200+ players was pretty difficult., and a lot of names will be left off. We love the debate, and look forward to the reaction of CardNation.
With all that said, let’s begin! Today we’ll look at players 15-12.