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Louisville Basketball: 3 burning questions on every Louisville fan’s mind entering the season

By Brett Siegel

LOUISVILLE, KY - FEBRUARY 05: David Johnson #13, Samuell Williamson #10, Quinn Slazinski #11 and Aidan Igiehon #22 of the Louisville Cardinals react from the bench during a game against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons at KFC YUM! Center on February 5, 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville defeated Wake Forest 86-76. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
LOUISVILLE, KY - FEBRUARY 05: David Johnson #13, Samuell Williamson #10, Quinn Slazinski #11 and Aidan Igiehon #22 of the Louisville Cardinals react from the bench during a game against the Wake Forest Demon Deacons at KFC YUM! Center on February 5, 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville defeated Wake Forest 86-76. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /
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Louisville basketball head coach Chris Mack walks the sideline
LOUISVILLE, KY – JANUARY 25: Head coach Chris Mack of the Louisville Cardinals looks on along with his staff on the bench during a game against the Clemson Tigers at KFC YUM! Center on January 25, 2020 in Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville defeated Clemson 80-62. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /

Question 2: How big of a role will this year’s freshman class play for the Cards?

This is probably the question that not even the Louisville Basketball staff can answer at this point because of all the uncertainty with this upcoming season. Louisville brings in three four-star recruits this season in F D’Andre Davis (ESPN Top 100 recruit), C Gabe Wizniter and F J.J. Traynor.

With the depth and expected jump in production that the Louisville sophomore class provides, this could result in a low number of minutes being available for this year’s freshman class. This does not mean that these three players cannot make meaningful contributions on the court this season if the Cards have injuries/COVID-19 cases appear.

D’Andre Davis joins the Cards this season after averaging 21.5 points, 8.7 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.3 blocked shots and 1.2 steals per game as a senior in 2019-20 for Lawrence Central in Indiana, which posted a 22-3 record. Davis completed his high school career with 1,192 points and 516 rebounds, helping Lawrence Central to a 60-14 record over the last three seasons, including the program’s first sectional title in seven years in 2019.

Gabe Wizniter joins Louisville after averaging 14.2 points and 10.1 rebounds a game, while shooting 42 percent from three-point range as a junior on the postgraduate team for Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Va. It is expected that Wizniter will have a similar role this season that Aidan Igiehon had last season with Louisville where his freshman season was more of a developmental season, not seeing the court much in games but getting a lot of attention and training in practice.

J.J. Traynor, the Louisville native, averaged 20.2 points, 11.2 rebounds and 3.6 blocks as a senior in 2019-20 for Bardstown. Traynor was voted a First-Team 2020 All-State selection by the Courier-Journal, receiving the second-highest voting total for the distinction, and was selected as the Maxpreps Kentucky Player of the Year. If I had to make a guess, I would expect Traynor to be a lot like Jae’Lyn Withers and either redshirt this season, or take this year to learn and improve in efforts to have a breakout sophomore/second season.

If injuries or COVID cases do arise for the Louisville Basketball program, one of these three freshmen could be inserted into the rotation, but early on, I would expect only D’Andre Davis to see significant minutes in the Louisville rotation.

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