Louisville basketball: 3 most intriguing things about 2020-21

The team will look more like Chris Mack’s typical brand of basketball

With the recent departure of Darius Perry, as of now, Louisville basketball does not have a player on the roster listed shorter than 6’4.”

That’s always subject to change, but the point remains that Chris Mack’s brand of basketball is starting to take shape as each player on the roster begins to take the mold of what he wants and expects from his teams.

Outside of Malik Williams, every player on the team was hand-picked and recruited by Mack and his staff because of their fit into the mold of his system.

While under Pitino, the Cardinals were fine with smaller, faster players all over the floor, Mack is more of the Florida State mold where he wants a roster of long, athletic versatile guards and forwards.

With the additions of Scrubb and D’Andre Davis, and the subtraction of more traditional Pitino-style players, Mack is going to have a team molded after what he wants.

David Johnson is an insane talent who will do incredible things in the league but don’t lose sight of the fact that Johnson also thrived late in the season because it was clear that he was able to physically do what Mack asks for on both sides of the ball. Can you even think about the lineups at play for the Cards next season?

While Ryan McMahon, Fresh Kimble, and Darius Perry are excellent defensive players and well-rounded contributors on the team, throwing them into a pack-line defense or asking them to pass over the top of longer defenders is a futile task. Certainly, the players on the team were capable of running Mack’s system, but we saw over and over against teams with long, athletic guards, that the Cards would not ultimately succeed for forty minutes playing that style with those players.

Things are destined to change all over the court in 2020-21, but it starts with Johnson, Scrubb, Samuell Williamson, and Josh Nickelberry.