An ode to the graduating class that saved Louisville basketball

Louisville basketball fans will have a chance at one final send-off for a massive graduating class on Sunday. Why these Cardinals graduates saved the Louisville program.

Chris Mack’s biggest recruiting win as Louisville basketball‘s head coach was in April of 2018.

In 2018, Louisville finished an interim year under player turned assistant David Padgett on a sour note. A team consisting of Rick Pitino-recruited players battling uphill with an inexperienced coach lost a series of heartbreaking games that barely kept them out of the NCAA Tournament.

Enter Mack.

If any of the players on that team wanted to seek opportunities elsewhere, no one could blame them. Pitino was fired two days before the season started in 2017, thus leaving them no option but to stay and play in Louisville. But this was different. A chance for a fresh start and to cut things off clean with the university.

But they stayed.

Steven Enoch stayed. He was a sit-out transfer from UConn. Enoch played two years for the Huskies, came to Louisville and never even got to practice for a second under Pitino. He sat for a year under Padgett, but he could have graduated and had two years of eligibility elsewhere. Three years. Three coaches. And the only coach he committed to and wanted to play for, Enoch transferred away from for what he thought was a better opportunity. But Enoch stayed.

Dwayne Sutton was in a similar situation. He was a sit-out transfer who never got a chance to play for Pitino. Sutton stayed.

Jordan Nwora never played a second for the coach he was recruited by, and as a true freshman under Padgett, he sat out in some of the team’s key moments. In Louisville’s season-defining collapse against No. 1 Virginia, Nwora never left the bench. But Nwora stayed.

Ryan McMahon redshirted his first year under Rick Pitino in a season that was halted by a self-imposed postseason ban. He stayed and played under Pitino for his redshirt freshman year, stuck around and played under Padgett. McMahon could have had opportunities elsewhere. He stayed.

They stayed. They chose to play for a coach that they didn’t commit to, amid a really unfortunate situation. Louisville’s senior class rode out the tough times, they stuck together during years where a negative light was cast upon the program. They turned things around.

In a time where we live in a “what have you done for me lately” society, it’s easy to overlook the significance of these seniors, and what they truly meant for the program. The amount of maturity it takes to go through what they have and still stick with the program and turn things around as quickly as they have will never receive the recognition it deserves.

What if there was a mass exodus of players? That was a huge question in March and April of 2018.

What if the Chris Mack rebuild started from scratch?

What if Nwora, Enoch, McMahon, Darius Perry, Malik Williams, and others just left?

I can tell you what would have happened. Not this.

Louisville would not have been ranked No. 1 in the country 18 months later. Louisville would not be in the race for an ACC title. The Cardinals would not be talking about a top 3 or 4 seed in the NCAA tournament. They likely would not have beaten Michigan, Michigan State, Duke, North Carolina, and a good portion of the rest of their schedule in the Mack era.

If even one or two players bolted in 2018, it may not look even close to what it does now.

As a collective city and fanbase, we need to do a much better job of acclimating ourselves to reality.

I’m just as guilty as the next man of worrying about the logistics of a loss, defensive lapses, shooting slumps, and so forth. It’s easy, in the heat of the moment to lose touch with how blessed we are as Louisville basketball supporters.

We are blessed to have an amazing, passionate group of fans and supporters in the city of Louisville. We are blessed to have an incredible coach, awesome AD, great president, and administration. We have world-class facilities and world-class culture.

None of that would matter, however, without world-class players, who also happen to be first-class people.

Louisville could lose out. It doesn’t matter. Don’t you see? We’ve already won.

Things will be okay. Players have bad games, coaches have off nights, circumstances prevent us from getting wins. Things happen. And that’s okay.

It could be so much worse. And without the four players that have been through it all, without the six graduates that will be honored on Sunday, we have none of this.

Today, feel blessed that you can complain about officiating in a close game. Feel privileged to get to watch these players in a Louisville uniform, and understand just how lucky we are to be in the spot we are in.

You are witness to one of the greatest cultural turnarounds in college basketball in a long, long time, and one of the greatest groups of guys our university will ever be fortunate enough to watch.

We’ve already won.