Why Aidan Igiehon could change everything for Louisville basketball

Incoming freshman Aidan Igiehon has the potential to completely reinvent the Louisville basketball culture.

The first time he landed on American soil, Aidan Igiehon knew that everything was about to change for him.

“People here, they have the mentality of ‘kill or be killed,'” Igiehon said. “I came here naive to the fact that everyone was doing it for fun. It was a rude awakening when I saw people really get mad. I definitely adjusted to that. I learned off that and I fed off that, too.”

Igiehon is not your typical recruit by any measurement. He didn’t come up on the AAU circuits. He didn’t grow up in an area where basketball courts or hoops were easily accessible. He didn’t have NCAA or NBA basketball games on TV every night.

Until he was in middle school, Igiehon didn’t even have dreams of one day being a big-time star. It wasn’t until a growth spurt in the eighth grade when he went from about 5’4″ to 6’4″ that he even began to consider basketball as something that he could potentially become great at.

It was around that time that Igiehon, with the help of his family, made the decision to move to New York City to play high school basketball.

Fast forward to today. Less than four years later Igiehon has grown into a 6’10,” 240-pound frame as an 18-year-old. As he began to work out in the states and continue to grow, Igiehon adopted the name “The Irish Hulk.” One look at his highlights and one could see why. He is already drawing comparisons to Louisville’s Montrezl Harrell and one-time NBA superstar Dwight Howard due to his unbelievable frame and tenacious attitude around the basket.

Igiehon says that he does around 600 push ups and 200 pull ups every single day, and he cultivates that with his aforementioned “kill or be killed” mentality.

But what separates Igiehon from the rest of the big-name recruits in the 2019 class is who he is as a person. He didn’t grow up with the spotlight on him, but he thrives in it. He seems like he says and does all of the right things, and his level-headedness has given him an opportunity to grow from unknown Irish kid to one of the biggest names in his recruiting class in less than four years.

If you listen to interviews with him, he sounds like a veteran NBA player, not a kid from Dublin City, Ireland.

Igiehon is a breath of fresh air for Louisville basketball. The Cards are amidst a culture renovation under second-year head coach Chris Mack, and Igiehon has all of the qualities they are looking for.

This is not to say that what Mack walked into was broken. 2018-19 featured a talented squad filled with potential NBA talent and student-athletes with excellent character. What the Cards lacked, however, was a player that was ready to come out and punch the other team in the mouth. Louisville lacked a killer mentality and struggled to keep leads against better teams. The Cards dwindled down the stretch a bit due to a lack of depth and firepower.

That all changes in 2019-20, when Louisville basketball will return a ton of core talent from the previous year’s squad and pair it with a young, hungry, talented specimen like Igiehon.

Don’t overlook the value that Igiehon brings even if he only averages 2 minutes per game. He brings a toughness, a grittiness, and a personality that will push his teammates to their limits. A frontcourt of Steven Enoch and Malik Williams last season had talent but lacked the punch of an Igiehon.

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Team depth changes everything. Hungry, gritty, determined depth flips a team’s culture completely upside down. In Igiehon, Louisville basketball could have their future face of the program, and a player who is not even close to tapping his potential.

“Aidan 2.0 is gonna look crazy,” said Igiehon of his future. “I’m going to continue to get stronger, get mentally right, and just continue to work on my game.”

Bigger, stronger, faster, mentally tougher- Those are all areas where Louisville basketball figures to improve in year two under Mack. And if Aidan Igiehon has anything to say about it, it’s gonna look crazy.