After being pegged as a candidate for a breakout sophomore year, Louisville basketball’s Donovan Mitchell is living up to the hype.
Every college basketball offseason, there are a few rising sophomores who are pegged as candidates for breakout campaigns. These players usually struggled their freshman seasons for reasons that can be anything from injuries, to lack of playing time, to simply ineffective play.
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Entering the 2016-17 season, no sophomore garnered as much attention — as far as being on the verge of a breakout year — as Louisville guard Donovan Mitchell.
As a freshman, Mitchell averaged less than 20 minutes per game stuck behind two veteran playmakers in Damion Lee and Trey Lewis. This year, with the departure of both players, Mitchell was thrust into the spotlight as a key performer on a preseason top 15 team.
At first, it seemed unclear whether Mitchell was ready to assume his newfound role. The Brewster Academy product had an atrocious start to the season that extended through the first game of ACC play. Mitchell was averaging just over 11 points and five rebounds through the Cardinals’ first 13 games but was shooting 35 percent from the field and 28 percent from three.
His play became such a problem that head coach Rick Pitino benched Mitchell for Louisville’s New Year’s Eve matchup with Indiana, his first time not starting all season. Luckily for the Cardinals, he responded in a big way.
Mitchell came off the bench to pour in 25 points on 8-of-15 shooting, including hitting 4-of-7 from downtown. He shot the ball with confidence, and, for the first time in his career, eclipsed 20 points.
Since his breakout game against the Hoosiers, Mitchell is averaging 19.6 points, 4.4 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 1.9 steals on impressive 45/46/82 shooting splits. He has failed to reach 15 points just once during that stretch and has burst onto the scene as one of the best players in the ACC. He has led Louisville to a 6-3 conference record and has moved into ninth in KenPom’s National Player of the Year standings.
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Moving forward, questions still linger about how sustainable Mitchell’s current hot streak is. The “power guard” was not known as much of a shooter coming out of high school, so it remains to be seen if he can continue to knock down three’s at such a high clip.
Regardless of whether or not his jumper is falling, Mitchell just needs to make sure he keeps bringing the same sort of intensity on both sides of the ball that he has brought the last month. Louisville plays a style of basketball that relies on opponents’ mistakes as a form of offense, and the more chaotic they can make the game the better. Mitchell thrives in this sort of system with his ability to wreak havoc on opposing guards.
He is, after all, far more valuable for his defensive contributions than his offense, despite his hot shooting of late. Mitchell is currently third in the ACC in steal percentage, and Louisville gives up just 0.85 points per possession with Mitchell on the floor, according to Hoop Lens. That number compares favorably to the 0.94 PPP the Cardinals surrender with Mitchell on the bench.
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Louisville is right in the middle of the race for an ACC championship. With the struggles of Duke and North Carolina, and the loss of Austin Nichols for Virginia, the conference appears to be as wide open as ever. It is impossible to predict just how things will shake out. But, if Mitchell keeps playing the way he has of late, the Cardinals will be in the thick of things for the remainder of the season.