Predicting the 8 biggest games for Louisville basketball in 2019-20

Heading into the season with a lot of hype and expected to be ranked in the top 5, Chris Mack’s Louisville Cardinals are in for an exciting season. They’ll be tasked with some very tough matchups and it’ll be interesting to see if they can live up to the hype. 

Not many people expected the Louisville basketball program to be contending for a national championship in Year two of the Chris Mack era, but it was never a doubt in the mind of the players and coaches. They immediately bought into the new system, and coach Mack put together one of the top recruiting classes in school history. Nonetheless, here we are.

Jordan Nwora was voted as the ACC Preseason Player of the Year, coming off a season in which he earned ACC Most Improved Player as he averaged 17 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 1.3 assists while knocking down 77 three-pointers. Louisville was picked to finish third in the ACC behind Duke and North Carolina, but you could make an argument that they are the best team in the conference.

The Cards bring back one of the nation’s top glue guys in Dwayne Sutton, as well as big man Steven Enoch, three-point specialist Ryan McMahon, athletic guard Darius Perry, and they’ll get veteran big man Malik Williams back from injury sometime after the start of the season.

Mack welcomes highly touted freshmen like Samuell Williamson and Aidan Igiehon, as well as underrated guys like Jae’lyn Withers, Josh Nickelberry, David Johnson (who is also recovering from injury), and Quinn Slazinski. He filled the need at point guard after the departure of Christen Cunningham by securing the services of St. Joseph’s graduate transfer Lamarr “Fresh” Kimble, who averaged 15.6 points a game last year.

This combination of talented veterans and young guys gives Louisville fans excitement that they haven’t had in a few seasons. They’ll play a tough ACC schedule and they have a few tough non-conference games that cannot be overlooked.

As we are only 14 days away from the Cards exhibition game against Bellarmine, I’m going to break down the eight most important games of the regular season schedule, preview the opponents, and give some predictions. It’s almost that time Card Nation!

Editors note: The games below are listed in order by date, not by the ranking of significance.