Louisville basketball: Chris Mack has no shortage of PG options, but which is best?

Fresh Kimble – Graduate

Louisville fans badly wanted Kimble to slide directly into that void that Christen Cunningham left when he graduated after last season. Before practice started, Kimble’s highlights tapes were enough to make you believe he would be the starting point guard in his only season at UofL, that has not been the case.

Fresh has seemed timid offensively at times so far this season and it’s hard to say how to fix that. Teams are sagging off of Kimble drastically and daring him to score the basketball. Kimble has broken double digits in the scoring column just once this season but his scoring isn’t necessarily what the Cardinals need. They need someone that can get them into their offense and make an open shot when needed. There is already a lot of possible scoring options on the floor for UofL at any given time, Louisville needs their point guard to put them in a position to do that.

As Kimble becomes more familiar with his teammates and the chemistry builds, he may be the guy that’s most deserving of this role. He plays hard defensively all the time and his mistakes on offense are often because he’s trying to do too much. Although he’s an older member of this veteran Cardinal team, he’s just 10 games in, in a sport where chemistry really matters.

So be patient with Fresh, I think our perception of him will be very different by this time in February.

Why Fresh should be the starting/closing point guard:  Do you know how hard it is to step into a role on a team that is ready to win at the highest level after you’ve spent three years elsewhere? Me neither, which is why I trust Coach Mack to figure things out with Kimble.

At St. Joseph’s Kimble was the first or second option nearly all the time. While he played with NBA players like Charle Brown, Isaiah Miles, and DeAndre Bembry, Kimble was still always asked to be a scorer.

With the scoring role pretty much covered between Jordan Nwora, Dwayne Sutton, Steven Enoch, and Ryan McMahon, Kimble has been asked to be a playmaker more than anything else for the first time in his career – or so it seems.

Everyone wanted to see Kimble come in and replicate the success of CC from 2018-19 without understanding that he had never done those things before.

With Fresh, it seems like you have to let him be him. Does that make sense? Probably not. But what it means is don’t ask him to do something he can’t do unless you feel comfortable that he can make that transition, easily.

With injuries to himself, David Johnson, and several players on the team it’s been harder for him to get acclimated than we’d all probably like to admit, and it’s shown on the court at times. But like Darius, Kimble is a veteran who has three years of not only playing college basketball at a high level but doing so as a three-time captain.

Ask yourself this… What’s Louisville’s biggest need right now?

The easy answer is a point guard. Fresh fits that box.

What’s Louisville’s second-biggest need?

A myriad of answers are applicable – but i’d say they need another reliable scoring option on the floor with Jordan and Steve who can manufacture their own points. Fresh fits that too, we just haven’t seen it.

Maybe a roll change to being a “score first” point guard can be manageable with another guard on the floor like Ryan or Darius, who can assist with the set up of the offense. Or maybe it takes Mack scrapping his exact thoughts on the point guard role and letting Fresh be Fresh?

If you think Kimble can give you even 2x more than he is now, than give him the minutes and let him prove it.