Louisville basketball: Kenny Payne has reached out to an available 4-star guard

Yesterday afternoon, there was a massive shake-up in the Big East’s coaching carousel with Rick Pitino leaving Iona to become the Head Coach at St. John’s University and Ed Cooley leaving Providence to become the Head Coach at Georgetown University.

The Big East is turning into an elite basketball conference once again in terms of who they have on their benches leading their men’s basketball programs. For example, they now have Rick Pitino, Ed Cooley, Sean Miller, Shaka Smart, Shaheen Holloway, Thad Matta, and more. The glory days of the former conference that hosted Louisville seem to be coming back and that is exciting for all of college basketball.

An underlying storyline in all of the coaching movement is the fact that four-star combo guard Garwey Dual’s recruitment is now officially back open. The Southern California Academy product was committed to Ed Cooley and the Providence Friars prior to his departure for the Hoyas.

Now, he is back on the market and it has been confirmed from a source to Big Red Louie that Kenny Payne has reached out to Dual and could potentially join a Top 10 recruiting class here at the University of Louisville.

What is wild is that a majority of the players that strutted out onto the court this past season for the Cardinals are now gone: Roosevelt Wheeler, Fabio Basili, Jae’Lyn Withers, Devin Ree, Kamari Lands, and Sydney Curry have all entered the transfer portal. Which created room for Skyy Clark, Dennis Evans, Trentyn Flowers, Kaleb Glenn, Koron Davis, and Curtis Williams Jr. to join the team.

And now with the recent announcement of Jae’Lyn Withers entering the portal, another scholarship spot has opened and it very well could go to Garwey Dual. The 6-foot-5, 175-pound shooting guard is originally from Houston Texas, but transferred to Carmel High School for his junior season in hopes of attaining more experience at the high school level.

Following a less than stellar performance at Carmel, Garwey Dual joined the spring AAU circuit in 2022 and exploded onto the scene, jumping up from an un-recruited prospect to a four-star prospect and a Top 100-level player.

He joined the George Hill All-Indy team and despite not being on a Nike, Adidas, or Under Armour circuit, the G3 All-Indy team is still considered a top 25 AAU team in the country.

247Sports’ Eric Bossi (via FriarBasketball Substack) had this to say about Dual last year:

"“Headed into the spring, you had to be one serious hoops junkie to know anything about Garwey Dual. Amazing what a month can change as Dual is now one of the hottest names in the class of 2023… Long and athletic, Dual has proven to be a problem off the dribble for anybody trying to stay in front of him. He’s still got room to get better there and as a jump shooter but his physical tools are big time so we are talking about a guy with a lot of upside.”"

He could be a great addition to this Louisville team that needs more guard help. Right now, the team has Skyy Clark, Koron Davis, and Trentyn Flowers who can play the one or two spot, with the potential for El Ellis to return. But, adding a guy like Dual to this team would be a huge benefit for the Cardinals.

Kenny Payne has completely overhauled this roster in what seemed to be impossible due to the lack of available talent in the 2023 recruiting cycle. But, he managed to pry Dennis Evans away from other suitors as he requested out of his National Letter of Intent with the Minnesota Golden Gophers, convinced Skyy Clark to come here from Illinois, and landed Trentyn Flowers who re-classified to the 2023 class.

Now, another Top-100 player is available on the market and Louisville is after him. Adding him to this recruiting class may send Louisville in the Top Five in the nation.