Louisville basketball: 2 players primed to level up in conference play

Louisville got some more bad news this week as the team declared that freshman center Dennis Evans, who has been dealing with a shoulder injury, is no longer medically cleared to play. He will not return this season. 

So, the Cardinals will have to turn to another young front-court player to eat up some minutes, and Kaleb Glenn has already seen an increased role over the past few games. Glenn is only averaging 7.9 minutes a game for the year, but over the past three, he has played 40 total minutes. 

He only scored four points across those three games, but he did grab 12 rebounds. This isn’t a case where I’m projecting that Glenn will turn into a star, but behind Evans, he was the next highest-rated recruit in Louisville’s 2023 freshmen class which was ranked No. 6 in the country. 

Glenn is a developmental project, but he’s athletic and plays with a high effort level, which should be more than enough to start for this Louisville team. Yet, against Virginia, Payne opted to start Danilo Jovanovich who played 25 minutes and finished with four points on five shots. 

It’s time for Glenn to get more playing time and enter the starting lineup alongside fellow freshman Ty-Laur Johnson

By the end of the year, it will be clear that Glenn is a keeper for next year’s team. He’ll level up into an important role player by the end of January.