Louisville basketball: Gabe Wiznitzer checks all the boxes for Cards

What does Chris Mack think about Wiznitzer?

One thing that is always intriguing to hear is what the coaching staff is looking for, versus what they feel that they actually got in a player.

On June 19th, Louisville basketball head coach Chris Mack joined us on the BRL podcast, and we asked him about what he planned to do with his final scholarship, four weeks before the Cards signed Wiznitzer.

Here is what he said:

"“That’s a great question. The last thing we want to do is just put a body in that scholarship. Unless they’re really gonna help our team, whether it’s this year or in the future, I’m not going to say we are going to hold onto it, but we aren’t gonna give it out to just give it out, or just to have a full complement of scholarships. “I’d be lying if I said ‘hey, this is the year we’re gonna get, this is who we’re gonna get, we’re gonna continue to stay open. So, you never know in college basketball. Kids enter the transfer portal all the time. If we feel like we can add somebody that will help our team this year, then we’re gonna do that. If we feel like, at some point, whether it’s right at the start of school or first semester, and then all of a sudden there’s a transfer out there that obviously would have to sit out if they were joining us in the first or second semester, then we would do that. “Right now, to have a crystal ball and say ‘this is how it’s gonna play out,’ I don’t know that. We’ve looked over the last couple of months, and we don’t know that anybody is ‘Louisville quality’ enough to waste that scholarship at this point.”"

To summarize, Mack and the Louisville coaching staff used a play it by ear approach. The staff didn’t want to just fill a scholarship to just add a body- They wanted to add a player that filled a need in the future, and that could fit the mold of a ‘Louisville quality’ player.

Head Coach Chris Mack Teleconference

Head Coach Chris Mack Teleconference

Posted by Louisville Basketball on Thursday, July 23, 2020

So, did he get everything that he was looking for in Wiznitzer? We have the receipts.

Let’s check out what Mack said in his July 23rd presser, one week after landing Wiz:

"“We’ve known about Gabe for a while, but he was always, in our consideration and his own consideration, a 2021 prospect. I think with the (pandemic) situation at Hargrave Military Academy, he wasn’t sure not only with the basketball season, but he wasn’t sure that they would go back to school at all. “(Hargrave) draws players from all over the world. They draw a lot of their funding from international players. With the roadblocks with that, Gabe wasn’t sure if there’d even be a school year. So, we talked about that, that Gabe would come here early, but maybe not give up that year of elligibility and really work to improve his body, his skillset, get to know his teammates, and he was excited about that. There were a lot of really good schools that offered him scholarships that were pointing towards him being a 2021 prospect. Fortunately, we had a scholarship in the class. “We talked about all along wanting size, and that’s what Gabe represents. so we were really excited to get him.”"

From everything that Mack said, he was consistent in wanting to fill a need for the team, and the staff was able to utilize their open scholarship by bringing in a player who will, at the very least, provide talented depth in 2021.

That’s a win in my book.

So, what does Wiznitzer’s game look like, and what does he bring to the table for the Cards? Let’s take a deeper dive into his game.