Louisville basketball: Transfer portal update. Who’s trending to the Cardinals? Vol. 5

RaeQuan Battle – Guard – 6’5 – Montana State

I think Kenny Payne has made it abundantly clear, based on the guards he had at the University of Kentucky and the players he’s reaching out to now, he loves himself “big guards.” Well, say hello to the biggest and most talented guard still available in the portal, RaeQuan Battle.

Battle was a four-star recruit in the class of 2019, and he spent his first two years averaging less than 5 PPG in the PAC-12 as a guard for Washington. After struggling to make much of an impact for the Huskies, Battle transferred down to Montana State.

His first year with the Bobcats wasn’t too bad, as he won Big Sky Sixth Man of the Year, but last season was his true breakout season.

Battle put up 17.7 PPG on 47% shooting from the field. Those numbers were good enough to get Battle on the All-Big Sky First Team, and he also won the Big Sky Tournament MVP, after leading the Bobcats to a Big Sky Tournament championship.

And after a year of stat-stuffing and award-winning, Battle entered his name into the transfer portal for a second time.

As you can see, Louisville is among a long list of top schools interested in the talented guard, so it will be a “battle” to try and land his services over teams like Alabama, Kansas State, UCLA, and Texas, among others.

And there’s a good reason for that. The kid has incredible size and skill, and he’s extremely efficient. He shot 52% from two last year, and he shot over 35% from three on nearly six attempts per game.

So far, I haven’t seen any news of Battle visiting any schools, at all, so Louisville seems to have as good of a chance as any of the other teams listed, but Battle was in attendance at Montana State’s new head coach’s press conference.

So it seems as though a return to Montana State is, at least, a possibility Battle is considering. Or he could follow his previous coach to Utah State as well.

Battle is ranked, surprisingly, low on major websites’ transfer portal rankings, but On3 does have him as the 41st-best player in the portal. Based on what I’ve seen from him thus far, I think he should be ranked a lot higher, and I think he’d be an incredible addition to the team.

I’m not sure if the staff would add both RJ Luis and RaeQuan Battle, as they are both lengthy two-guards that would fill the same role. If Luis commits here, then that may take us out of the running for Battle, but I’d certainly be happy with either of them.