Six bold predictions for Louisville basketball in 2019-2020

We’re a little less than a month away from the beginning of the 2019-2020 season for Louisville basketball. The Big Red Louie team gives their bold predictions for the 2019 season.

Do you smell that? That’s the smell of being able to enjoy Louisville football again while patiently awaiting the return of a Lousiville basketball team with National Championship caliber hype.

Remember that? It’s been a while since you probably smelled it, but DAMN it’s great to have that back.

It’s been three seasons since Louisville basketball fans felt serious hype around a team and maybe even five or six years since we truly believed a Cardinal team could be on a collision course with the Final Four.

In just his second season as head coach, Chris Mack has Louisville primed to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament with the return of star wing Jordan Nwora, along with five other players from last year’s team and he’ll combine it with seven newcomers, including graduate transfer guard Fresh Kimble and potential one-and-done sensation, Samuell Williamson.

Louisville’s 2019-2020 roster has star-power, both outside on the wing and inside, depth, leadership, experience, youth, athleticism, and the list goes on and on. In just two seasons against all odds, Chris Mack has been able to turn a team who missed the NCAA Tournament and looked to be a downward path into a potential ACC Championship caliber team.

There will still be a lot of questions that this year’s squad will have to answer – none more important than how they’ll handle the expectations being placed on them. There are injury problems early with Malik Williams and David Johnson both out for an extended time, but those should provide younger, inexperienced players with an opportunity to get acclimated quickly and help produce at a higher level in the long-run.

Over the course of the next few weeks, as we inch closer and closer to the highly anticipated season opener against ACC opponent Maimi, we’ll start to see a clearer picture of what the Louisville basketball team will look like and how they’ll perform. For now, we know just enough to be dangerous when it comes to making “bold predictions.”

That’s why we polled seven of our contributing writers and decided to put together a list of predictions about the 2019-20 season. Again, we know some but not a lot when it comes to who will play where, who might take steps forward, who might take steps back, and how the season may go. That’s what makes these predictions fun. Some will be close, some will be completely far off, and others will be laughable.

Sit back, pour up your favorite drink (it’s never too early to start pregaming) and enjoy as our team does the best they can to take a stab at the 2019 football season.

Enjoy.