Louisville basketball may not be done at the guard position in 2021

Louisville basketball made the cut for a four-star player at a position they’re loaded at.

Recruiting has been a bright spot for Louisville basketball during this difficult time as Chris Mack and his staff have landed a tremendous group of players in the class of 2021 even in the midst of an ongoing case with the NCAA.

Since November of 2019, Mack has been able to secure four total commitments in the class of 2021 including Bryce Hopkins, Bobby Pettiford Jr., El Ellis and Eric Van Der Hejiden (Gabe Wiznitzer being the fifth – reclassifying to 2020)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, by now you’ve probably heard that Louisville has since lost their top rated recruit in Hopkins, who decommitted earlier this month citing his concern for the NCAA investigation and timing of potential punishment. It seems he’s likely headed to play for Kentucky, making the blow even worse, and now, Louisville is trying to figure out where to go next.

One player who Louisville seems to quietly be making a strong push after is four-star guard, and Fayetteville, North Carolina native, D’Marco Dunn. It would seem that with Pettiford Jr. and Ellis already in the fold that adding another guard would be redundant, but adding another big, ball-handling guard is something that Mack has interest doing.

Louisville basketball pursuing four-star guard

After extending an official scholarship offer to Dunn back in May, Louisville appeared to be a team who could make noise in his recruitment before taking commitments from the aforementioned guards. Other schools took the lead in the race for the four-star guard and though things didn’t look good for the Cards, it appears that Mack never let that persuade him from pursuing one of the nation’s top guards.

That effort paid off when Dunn, 247 Sports’ 15th best shooting guard, released his final seven schools which included Louisville, along with Arizona, Clemson, Texas, North Carolina, Vanderbilt, and Georgia.

https://twitter.com/dmarcodunn/status/1297564489919930369?s=20

At 6’4 Dunn is a guard capable of not only playing with the ball in his hands as a primary play maker but also off the ball as a lead scorer. While you may think that a third guard would crowd up the back court, Dunn is talented and versatile enough to play any position one through three without sacrificing size or ability to defend.

What mostly has coaches chasing after him is his ability to shoot at a high-level from just about everywhere on the court. As a junior, Dunn averaged over 20 points per game playing for Westover High School showing his scoring prowess, but what is even more amazing is the fact that he shot 45 percent from three going a remarkable 71/157.

https://twitter.com/BigShotsNation/status/1292510631732695042?s=20

What makes Dunn a prototypical Chris Mack guard is not only his size, but his rare mix of skill, athleticism, versatility, and most importantly, the dog mentality that he plays with. We heard Mack comment on Dwayne Sutton’s “warrior-like” mentality over his two years at Louisville as well as talk  in-depth about the desire to have players who play with swagger and an unmatched level of toughness.

That’s exactly what Louisville would be getting in Dunn, a player who thrives because of his non-stop motor and high intensity. You want players like that at every position and having too many is never a problem you worry about, and with two guys who also fit that mold committed (both hailing from NC) Mack can pitch combining a special trio.

Playing three guard lineups isn’t something we’ve seen in quite some time but Pettiford, Ellis, and Dunn would be absolutely capable of making that happen thanks to their different skill sets. What would make Dunn a good fit there is his ability to space the floor with his shooting, while also being a more than dangerous slasher and player capable of breaking down defenses off the dribble and scoring at the rim.

North Carolina is the leader for Dunn from all accounts, but we’ve seen Mack and his staff absolutely killing it in the state and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Louisville make it all the way to the very end.