Louisville basketball’s five most intriguing players in 2020
By Jacob Lane
No. 4 – Aidan Igiehon, F/C
2019 stats: 1.0 points, 1.3 rebounds
As 1/6 of the “Super Six” Aidan Igiehon was a huge recruiting win for Chris Mack back in 2019, giving the Louisville basketball program a physical specimen who could one day become a star big man.
Much like with Williamson, the learning curve was steep for Igiehon and his transition to college basketball was rockier than Chris Mack would’ve liked to see. For that reason, Mack and the Louisville staff chose the slow cook route for Igiehon, bringing him along slowly in a de facto “redshirt” season.
Mack talked about Igiehon’s development on several occasions and talked about the tricky adjustment to things like speed of the game, energy required for workouts and practice, focus in meetings, and other details of the game that most fans really don’t put much thought into.
Igiehon did get action early in the season due to an injury to center Malik Williams, and Cardinal fans got to see for themselves how much work there was left for Igiehon before he was ready to contribute. A shoulder injury late in the season kept us from getting any further glimpses of his development, and led to a lot of questions and talk about whether he could be what we thought he could in the future.
While some fans allowed his rawness overall and struggles in year one to deter them, I find it to be one of the most intriguing and exciting things of the 2020 season. Due to the loss of Steven Enoch, Igiehon won’t have the option of sitting on the sidelines and watching the game from afar.
Instead, he’ll be the primary back up to Williams, who will be stepping into the primary full-time starting role for the first time in his career. That means minutes. That means expectations. And that means unquestioned, improved production.
In a shortened and bumpy offseason that kept players away from campus, did Igiehon get the work necessary to make that jump? We saw Mack pursue multiple big man graduate transfers this offseason to no avail, giving you reason to question whether or not they believe he’ll be able to make a big jump in year two.
Still, I have faith that the work ethic we’ve heard about from Igiehon combined with having a year of college basketball under his belt and the need for big man production at Louisville will lead to him figuring things out on the fly.
What that will look like is so intriguing. In fact, Igiehon could turn out to be one of the biggest surprises of the season which ever way his season goes.