A lot has changed in college athletics in the last few years. Conference re-alignment has had big implications on basketball programs. The transfer portal has wildly affected the rosters of programs. NIL has only gotten more out of control. The Louisville basketball program is trying to navigate those changes.
Louisville is trying to get back to being an elite program. They have all of the resources necessary to get there. They have a wealth of tradition, alumni in the NBA, and relatively recent success. There's no reason that they shouldn't be able to turn things around quickly.
One thing that they are doing to help with that is using NIL. Louisville basketball fans are doing an excellent job helping the program land as many players as they can. NIL helped put together a brand new roster and it will help them get recruits too. In fact, they have a top ten NIL valuation in the country.
Louisville basketball program has the eighth-best NIL in the country
According to a poll by CBS Sports, Louisville has the eighth-best NIL of any basketball program. The only programs with better NIL than them are Arkansas, Kansas, BYU, Kentucky, IU, Kansas State, and Baylor. The Cardinals are doing pretty well for themselves.
I can't believe that BYU is in the top three, but that's beside the point. The point is that Louisville is doing everything that it can to succeed in this new era of college basketball. They are leaving no stone unturned when it comes to improving their results.
It's up to Pat Kelsey to put the pieces together on the court and make them a winning team. The roster right now needs some time to get some chemistry since no one has played with each other before, but that's just the new way of college basketball.
This NIL program will help the Cardinals get some elite recruits. Five-star recruits will be playing for Louisville very soon.