Whatever you thought you knew about Louisville, the next opponent for the UVA Basketball team, on Saturday at 4 p.m. ET at JPJ (broadcast: ACC Network), you know nothing.
The Louisville squad that beat North Carolina by double-digits on Wednesday is all new guys.
Nine guys played in the 83-70 win: eight are transfers, one is a true freshman.
Welcome to College Basketball 2025.
Forecast
- KenPom: Louisville 66-64, 56% win probability
- EvanMiya: Louisville 69-65, 65.8% win probability
- BartTorvik: Louisville 63-62, 58% win probability
- ESPN BPI: Louisville +0.6, 52.6% win probability
- Haslametrics: Louisville 65-62
New players, new coach
The coach is new, too – Pat Kelsey, who took two Winthrop teams to the NCAA Tournament, then had Charleston in the last two NCAA Tournaments, with a 58-12 record over the past two seasons there.
Kelsey likes to play fast – Louisville is averaging 69.2 possessions per game, which is actually down from the tempo that he had his Charleston teams playing the past couple of years, so, just know that he wants the game to go faster – and he likes his teams to jack up threes.
Louisville is averaging 32.0 three-point attempts per game, which ranks eighth nationally.
They don’t make that many of them – 29.5 percent, ranking 334th.
Louisville actually shoots more threes than twos (28.5 per game, the ninth-fewest in D1.)
The theory: if you keep throwing up threes, eventually some will go in.
The rotation
Kelsey will go with a four-guard lineup roughly 40 percent of the game, so, about 15-17 minutes.
The guy getting the minutes as the small-ball four is 6’6” Colorado transfer J’Vonne Hadley (10.1 ppg, 7.9 rebounds/g, 46.3% FG, 26.7% 3FG), who is a better shooter from three than he’s shown this season – he was 41.7 percent from long-range last year at Colorado.
When Kelsey goes big, he slides 6’11” senior Noah Waterman (7.7 ppg, 4.6 rebounds/g, 36.1% FG, 26.9% 3FG), over to the four, with 6’11” sophomore James Scott (6.6 ppg, 5.6 rebounds/g, 84.8% FG) at the five.
Yes, Scott is shooting 84.8 percent from the field – 33 of his 46 attempts are at the rim, is how.
Dude can finish at the rim – he’s 30-of-33 on those shots – and in the paint – he’s 9-of-11 on short jumpers in the paint.
The backcourt is explosive, with 6’2” senior Chucky Hepburn (15.9 ppg, 5.4 assists/g, 47.4% FG, 33.3% 3FG), 6’6” senior (and JMU transfer) Terrence Edwards (14.1 ppg, 42.4% FG, 30.4% 3FG) and 6’2” senior Reyne Smith (13.4 ppg, 39.7% FG, 37.5% 3FG).
How Virginia matches up
Kelsey started Waterman and Scott for the UNC game, and gave each good minutes (Waterman: 30, Scott: 25), with 6’8” freshman four Khani Rooths (3.1 ppg, 2.9 rebounds/g, 12.3 minutes/g) getting 10 minutes off the bench, and 6’10” senior Frank Anselem-Ibe (4.2 minutes/g) getting four minutes.
I point that out to do the math: that’s 69 minutes for the bigs, meaning, Kelsey only went four-guard for 11 minutes, down a little from the norm over their last five.
This will be something to monitor. UVA Basketball coach Ron Sanchez had some success going three-guard against four-guard NC State on Tuesday in Virginia’s 70-67 win, getting good looks for 6’8” junior four Elijah Saunders (12.2 ppg, 5.2 rebounds/g, 48.2% FG, 39.4% 3FG), who had 22 points, 14 in the second half.
Another thing to monitor: what Sanchez does at point guard, after benching Dai Dai Ames (7.3 ppg, 1.8 assists/g, 39.5% FG, 47.8% 3FG) after giving him nine first-half minutes in the win over State.
Sanchez went with Andrew Rohde (8.5 ppg, 3.2 assists/g, 47.4% FG, 46.9% 3FG) at the point the rest of the way, and Rohde responded with 11 points, seven assists and no turnovers in 36 minutes.
It wasn’t due to injury – Sanchez said after the game that he wanted more of a committee approach to point guard.
If that thinking holds over is something to watch for on Saturday.
Video: UVA Basketball Louisville preview
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Chris Graham
