Louisville Basketball: Top 15 players to ever play for legend coach Denny Crum

3. LaBradford Smith

A highly-touted recruit from Bay City, Texas, Smith was a 6’3 shooting guard who picked Louisville shortly after they won their second national championship. Smith didn’t contribute to that level of success but did arrive in 1987 and helped the Cardinals win plenty of games across the next four seasons.

Smith’s game was all about scoring and ball distribution, racking up impressive scoring and assist numbers in his career. He helped take Louisville to a pair of Sweet Sixteen runs in his first two collegiate seasons. He averaged a program-record 6.5 assists per game as a junior, having already set the free throw percentage record during his freshman campaign. The Cardinals struggled in his final collegiate season, but Smith averaged 16.6 points and 4.9 assists in another dominant season running the show.

Pick 19 in the 1991 NBA Draft, Smith shot his way into the NBA and played professionally for nearly a decade, with his highlight being a 37-point outing against the Chicago Bulls in 1993. Smith played a major role in those Sweet Sixteens and still stands out despite not getting this program to another Final Four. He remains Louisville’s all-time leader in free throw shooting and assists, with 713 assists in his career.