The Louisville basketball program has a multitude of aspects to legitimately believe that it can earn the ACC regular-season title in 2019-20.
The Louisville basketball team enters year No. 2 of the Chris Mack era with a boatload of optimism as the 2019-20 campaign inches closer. Expectations are ultra-high for the Cardinals in the upcoming term, and the arguments are logical: Louisville brings back the bulk of its offensive production from a stanza ago, it welcomes in one of the premier recruiting classes in the country, and the rugged Atlantic Coast Conference might prove slightly weaker, due to several powerhouses witnessing a departure of players to the professional ranks.
For a bit of context, let’s briefly recap 2018-19, the inaugural stint for Mack at the helm of the Cardinals following the Rick Pitino debacle. Despite returning just one starter and about a third of its scoring from the prior year, and predicted to finish 11th in the ACC, Louisville garnered a 10-8 league mark, resulting in a tie for sixth in the final conference standings. Pretty impressive, if you ask me.
The Cardinals also defeated a handful of AP top-25 crews, such as eventual Final Four participant Michigan State and North Carolina, which secured a No. 1 seed in the 2019 NCAA Tournament. Facing one of the nation’s most-arduous schedules, Louisville managed to grab a No. 7 seed in the Big Dance, where it fell in the round of 64 to No. 10 seed Minnesota. A 20-14 overall record in 2018-19 for the Cardinals is something for which Mack and his guys should feel proud, given the circumstances, and all signs point to the possibility of a stellar next campaign.
What follows are five explanations why Louisville will ultimately capture the ACC regular-season championship.