Louisville basketball learned yesterday that the Cardinals will be without assistant coach Thomas Carr, who will move on from Louisville to become an assistant coach at Indiana. Carr is considered one of the better assistant coaches in college basketball, having been under Kelsey for the last four seasons, during which the two coaches have logged an impressive combined 109-30 record.
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When Kelsey took over as head coach of the Louisville Cardinals in 2024, he brought many players and staff with him, including Carr. Kelsey found Carr when he was the athletic director at Word of God Christian Academy in Raleigh, but now, after four seasons of working together, Carr is leaving Louisville for the Hoosiers.
Indiana is hiring Louisville assistant Thomas Carr, source told @TheFieldOf68. Carr was with Pat Kelsey at Charleston and went with him to Louisville.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 25, 2026
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This comes as a surprise for a few reasons, one of which is that Louisville has dominated Indiana over the past two seasons with Carr and Kelsey on the roster. In their first season at Louisville, the Cardinals defeated Indiana 89-61, and this past season, Louisville defeated Indiana 87-78.
So, on paper, with Louisville beating the Hoosiers and making the NCAA Tournament under these two coaches, it feels a bit shocking that he would take a similar position with Indiana, but the biggest surprise comes from a recent Louisville documentary. Carr was on camera, stating they would win a National Title together, but just two weeks after that was released, he left Kelsey.
“Man, we’re going to win a National Title together. We are going to do this,” Carr stated in Sports Illustrated’s documentary. “Was dead serious. Still believe it to this day. So, when he called me, I said the same thing to him. We are going to win a National Championship together.”
Unfortunately, the two didn’t go on to win a National Championship together, but they did put together an impressive resume. As stated before, the two had a 109-30 record together: 51-19 in their first two seasons at Louisville and 58-11 at Charleston. They went on to win two CAA Championships together and made the ACC Tournament Championship at Louisville their first year.
Kelsey has a lot of work to do this offseason as he will try to rebuild his team, but now he will also have to rebuild some of his staff and replace a trusted assistant who has been with him for four impressive seasons.
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