Trentyn Flowers is the prospect that Louisville basketball needs

5-Star Combo Guard Trentyn Flowers has officially announced his college commitment date for March 17, 2023 at 5:30 PM.

The North Carolina native recently announced via Twitter that he has chosen a university to call home and he is set to announce it on St. Patrick’s Day at 5:30 PM on the 247Sports YouTube channel.

Trentyn Flowers is a five-star combo guard who was being pursued by teams all over the country. He totaled over 30 Division I offers, but ultimately narrowed it down to his top six: Creighton, Louisville, Alabama, North Carolina, Kansas, and Arkansas.

The buzz around this kid is through the roof because of his height, his skill set, and the fact that he can fill up the scoreboard. A 6-foot-8/6-foot-9 guard who can dribble and shoot doesn’t come around all that often, so it’s not a mystery why Division I schools from all over the country were pining for his services.

One of those schools is none other than the University of Louisville. Louisville just capped off it’s worst season in history with a final record of 4-28. However, there were many circumstances surrounding the program even prior to the program’s hiring of first-time Head Coach Kenny Payne that contributed to such a dismal season.

Prior to his arrival, the Cardinals suffered a 13-19 record the previous season, scandals forced then-head coach Chris Mack out of the program, several players hit the transfer portal, and all of this happened while under an IARP “probation” period from the Brian Bowen II scandal in 2017.

All of this happened before Kenny Payne even agreed to fill the head coaching vacancy. Not a great situation for anyone to walk into, but someone had to fill the position. So, in March 2022 when Kenny Payne did decide to come back to his alma mater, speculation swirled around his ability to recruit at a high level, his ties to the university as a former player, and his resume replete with working under incredibly gifted coaches.

However, the narrative surrounding him did not take long to change as he was unable to secure a lot of players in the transfer portal due to the lack of guaranteed post-season availability. The lingering IARP ruling dampened recruiting heavily, especially for players who only had one season of eligibility left and those are the veteran guys who want a shot at the post-season. So, with the potential of that being stripped away, Kenny Payne’s hands were tied.

Now the IARP ruling is behind the University of Louisville program, and as a result Kenny Payne’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing. And one of the most coveted prospects with ties to Louisville and undoubtedly Kenny Payne is five-star combo guard Trentyn Flowers.

On September 7, 2022, the Louisville Cardinals officially offered Trentyn Flowers a scholarship.

At this point in time, the thought of Louisville landing Flowers as a commitment was otherworldly because the IARP still hadn’t finalized their ruling yet. It wasn’t until early November that their report came out, five years from the original incident, and ultimately resulted in a Rick Pitino exoneration and the threat of a postseason ban on the program did not happen.

So, Louisville basketball fans were through the roof with joy as their program could now be free of this metaphorical “monkey on their backs” and could now move forward with more breath in their lungs.

This also would have been exciting news for Trentyn Flowers, who just a few weeks prior to this news was on-campus in Louisville for the basketball program’s Louisville Live event.

Fast forward to January 2023, and all the talk around the coveted guard focused in on his relationship with the staff at Creighton University. The Bluejays were the projected favorite, even landing a FutureCast from Rivals.com analyst Dave Lackford.

But, this did not slow the Louisville Cardinals staff from backing off of recruiting the Combine Academy prospect. In fact, quite the opposite happened.

On February 3, 2023, Flowers’ team, Combine Academy made the trek from North Carolina to Frankfort, Kentucky for The Kentucky Preview tournament.

Two people who were in attendance for this game were Louisville Head Coach Kenny Payne and Assistant Coach Nolan Smith. Both of whom caught up with Flowers after his team’s games concluded and convinced him to come back to Louisville that same weekend on an unofficial visit.

It was on this visit where things seemed to escalate between both sides as he made his way down to the court after the Cardinals’ matchup against Florida State and seemed to be filled with joy talking to the coaching staff.

Fast forward to present day and the Flowers-Louisville connection has really revved up in anticipation of his signing date just a short eight days away. And normally where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

On3 writer, Jamie Shaw recently added a prediction for Flowers to come to Louisville, even though it’s only a 60% confidence level, the fact that it’s that high is still encouraging.

Not only that, but the Recruiting Prediction Machine on On3 skyrocketed from 20% to 82% over the past couple of days in Louisville’s favor to land Trentyn Flowers. So, there definitely is smoke around his coming to Louisville and at this point in time, according to 247Sports composite rankings, he would be the sixth highest overall prospect to commit to the Cardinals in the modern recruiting era. One of those players was Brian Bowen II, who never even saw the court, so technically as soon as he were to put on the jersey, he would be the fifth highest.

And after the season the staff, the players, and the fans experienced, his signing would calm a lot of the negative noise surrounding the program and he would become an immediate impact player for the Cardinals.

With a roster largely incapable of scoring the ball at times, having a shot creator and a playmaker like Flowers would be a massive addition to this team, and help reignite the path to an elite program that Louisville once was for so long.

Also, if he were to commit here, he would open the recruiting floodgates of highly talented prospects who are also considering Louisville as a potential landing spot.