NCAA Basketball: Updated early top-25 power rankings for 2020-21 season

NCAA Basketball power rankings – Louisville Cardinals

With six of the team’s nine rotation players having graduated or entered the NBA Draft, the Cardinals had to do some retooling for next season. That was made even tougher when Jay Scrubb, considered to be the top JUCO transfer this recruiting cycle, elected to enter and stay in the draft himself.

But Coach Chris Mack was able to find a pair of quality grad transfers this offseason, including San Francisco wing Charles Minlend and Radford do-it-all guard Carlik Jones. These two, along with returning key pieces David Johnson and Malik Williams should be enough to have Louisville in the top half of the ACC.

If former five-star wing Samuel Williamson can break out as a sophomore and be a 15+ ppg scorer, things will be looking even better for this team. Four-star freshmen D’Andre Davis and JJ Traynor adds depth along with former top-50 recruit Aidan Igiehon, who’ll have a much bigger role after backing up the likes of Steven Enoch and Dwayne Sutton.

As long as the Cardinals can find enough shooting to go around next season to replace Ryan McMahon, they’ll be fine. But it’s always risky to rely on mid-major transfers moving up a level, as still providing similar production.