Probabilities for each Louisville basketball player’s return next season

Aidan Igiehon

Big man – Sophomore

Probability to return: 95 percent

No matter how accomplished and highly-touted you are as a recruit, it’s hard to earn playing time at the college level as a freshman. It’s even more difficult when you’re playing behind not one, but two potential All-ACC caliber big men, who demand nearly every available minute.

That was the case this season for Louisville’s most celebrated 2019 recruit Aidan Igiehon, despite entering the program with hype we haven’t seen from a recruit since potentially Donovan Mitchell. Although he averaged a double-double as a high school senior and was one of the most dominant players in the state of New York, Igiehon needed time to grow.

Coach Mack mentioned early in the season that Igiehon had to learn to become a true basketball player for the first time, learning how to work hard to achieve where he wanted to go. Knowing this season would be a development year for the raw big man, Mack didn’t issue a redshirt allowing for Igiehon to learn via in-game experience.

With Malik Williams out through the later parts of practice and into the early season, Igiehon earned a small role-playing very limited minutes (and I mean very limited) behind Steven Enoch. It was obvious Igiehon struggled to grasp the speed of the college game and needed time to develop.

Chris Mack was asked about where Igiehon needed the most work and what he could do to help the team. He said,

"“In all areas. He’s fouling at an alarming rate and the game’s moving too fast for him, but we’re going to continue to expose him in games so that he can get better. Ball-screen defense and rebounding are the two primary concerns that we have to get those two things better. If those two things improved greatly, we don’t need him to be a primary scorer as a freshman two games into his career. We don’t need him to be a play through post. We need him to rebound in and out of his area and we need him to be able to defend the ball screen. When he does those two things, his minutes and opportunity will grow.”"

Igiehon would finish the season dealing with a shoulder injury that forced him to miss the final 11 games of the season, bringing his total games competed to 13 with a total of 13 points and 12 fouls.

Many wondered whether the big man would return due to the lack of playing time, opportunity, and overall development compared to what may or may not be expected, but I don’t see that being the case. Igiehon all but confirmed he’d be back via a simple Tweet.

With Williams and Enoch on the roster, I believe it was well known that Igiehon was going to have to earn every single second of playing time he got but that the short-term goal was going to be development. That’s why I don’t envision him leaving Louisville being an option on the table at this point in time.

Igiehon needs work on his game to be able to do more than just rim run and rebound. As we’ve seen in Mack’s system the primary big man must be able to score with their back to the basket and facing up as well as the ability to be able to move their feet defensively whether it be hedging out on a ball screen and getting back to their man.

This offseason will be crucial for Igiehon as he’ll be a crucial part of next year’s team, stepping into the role left behind by Enoch. While Williams will be the team’s primary big, Igiehon will have to be able to step into playing 10-15 minutes a game on a night-by-night basis.