Louisville basketball: September shaking out to be crucial once again

For the second year in a row, September is shaking out to be one of the most important months of the year for Louisville basketball.

In his second season as head coach for the Louisville basketball program, Chris Mack has extremely high expectations.

Not only does Mack have a potential Final Four caliber team in less than 24 months since taking the job, a feat no one saw him accomplishing this quickly, but he also is coming off of a top 12 recruiting class in 2019 and is looking to continue building on that in 2020. Anything less could be considered below Louisville’s expectations, depending upon the circumstances.

After knocking out the 2019 class all before the early signing period last season, it allowed for Mack and company to begin looking ahead to the 2020 class.

After putting together an elite class, Mack was essentially able to hand-pick the best players available who he saw as fits for his system and begin developing relationships with them early, while other programs worked to close their ’19 classes.

With a little less than three months until the early signing period, Louisville holds zero commitments in the class of 2020 but recently has made the cut for several of the nation’s top four and five-star players. There shouldn’t be concern over the lack of commitments (I know we can all get a little bit antsy sometimes) as at this point last year, Mack held just one commitment – with plenty to come.

Last season we saw Mack use the month of September to gain momentum on the recruiting trail, and now in 2019, we are beginning to see that again this year once again.

With so much excitement around the program in his first year, Mack used it to his advantage, scheduling official visits weekend-after-weekend allowing for him to use an “open gym” setting with football games going on simultaneously. This exposed recruits to a large chunk of basketball-hungry fans in a unique setting while getting used to campus life. Not to mention Mack had special visitors around at the same time “coincidentally,” including Donovan Mitchell and Trey Lewis.

Mack technically was not allowed to be involved in these types of events, so in his place, his players set it all up taking the ball into their own hands, inviting fans thus creating a frenzy.

https://twitter.com/yocunningham/status/1040690368537341953

It all culminated with the commencement of Lousiville Live, a basketball kick-off event of sorts, that took place in a unique venue (Fourth Street Live) with thousands of fans gathering in a smaller venue to watch introductions, Dunk Contests, and Three-Point Contests in the middle of downtown Louisville.

Here’s what the timeline looked like in September last year leading up to Louisville Live.

"September 7th-9th – Jaelyn Withers takes an official visit to LouisvilleSeptember 9th – Jaelyn Withers commits to LouisvilleSeptember 14th – Jahmius Ramsey and Samuell Williamson take an official visit to LouisvilleSeptember 17th – Samuell Williamson commits to LouisvilleSeptember 22nd – David Johnson re-commits to LouisvilleSeptember 24th – David Johnson announces his intentions to visit for “Louisville Live”September 27th – Quinn Slazinski commits to LouisvilleSeptember 27th-29th – Aidan Igiehon takes an official visit to Louisville for “Louisville Live”September 28th – Louisville LiveOctober 18th – Aidan Igiehon commits to Louisville"

With Louisville Live just a little over a month away, Chris Mack and his staff are working hard to outdo their success from a year ago, once again using September as their leverage point.

According to Jake Weingarten, Louisville has set up visits with numerous four-star and five-star players including forward Josh Hall, five-star guard Nimari Burnett, five-star guard Devin Askew (currently a member of the 2021 class) as well as four-star power forward, Jaemyn Brakefield. The current timeline for September 2019 may look familar.

September 1 – Josh Hall to take an official visit to Louisville

September 13-15 – Nimari Burnett to take an official visit to Louisville

September 27 – Jaemyn Brakefield and Devin Askew to officially visit Louisville for “Louisville Live”

You can expect Louisville and coach Mack to continue reinventing the wheel and creating new ways to recruit the nation’s top players while using elements that worked from last season. If Mack is somehow able to land the likes of Burnet, Hall, and Brakefield, as well as a few others like Caleb Love and Hunter Dickinson, we could potentially be looking at one of, if not the best recruiting class in program history.

In order to do so, Louisville will have to go head-to-head with the nation’s top recruiters including Coach K, Coach Cal, Roy Williams, Sean Miller, and other coaches from blue blood programs, which may be relatively new territory to Chris Mack

** Updated August 17th**

Caleb Love, a five-star guard in the 2020 class and arguably Louisville basketball’s top target has not only cut his list down to the final six schools but has also set official visit dates. One of those stops will be in Louisville.

And it just so happens to be in September for Louisville Live.

https://twitter.com/caleb2love/status/1162789668183846912

Here’s what I wrote about Love last month:

"There’s no doubt in my mind that Caleb Love is the top target for the Cards in the class of 2020. The 6’3 lead guard out of Saint Louis has made a handful of trips to Louisville to visit campus, while the staff has seen play nearly every time he’s stepped on the floor this summer. He’s dynamic, athletic, and an elite playmaker with one-and-done potential, which is the reason why nearly every program in the country is after him."

Love isn’t the only elite prospect who has announced they will visit in September after I originally wrote this piece last week. According to Jake Weingarten of CardinalSports.com, Louisville will also be receiving a visit from four-star guard, Devion Smith during the first weekend of September.

On Smith, I wrote last month on the Big Red Louie recruiting big board:

"While Devion Smith doesn’t fit the traditional mold that Mack likes in his guards, there’s a reason why he’s been a top target for the staff this summer. After being one of the top players on the Adidas Circuit, Smith has seen his recruitment blow up with Louisville right in the thick of things. After a strong summer, he has become the second target at the point guard position in my mind."

September is going to be special once again.

But what’s not new to Mack, is nailing the month of September and sealing the deal with elite recruits. Buckle in folks, September is going to be a hell of a ride!