Louisville Basketball: Can Kenny Payne solve the PG problem in 2023-24?

Louisville Basketball’s head coach Kenny Payne has point guard identity problem for the upcoming 2023-24 basketball season.

Louisville Basketball’s offseason has been quite eventful and has given fans some things to be optimistic about heading into next season. They added five 4-star recruits and 2 former 4-star transfers, which was looked at as one of the top two 2023 classes in the ACC.

A big loss for the Cardinals, however, was the loss of Trenton Flowers, when he decided to play overseas instead of playing for the the Cardinals next season. This put the Cardinals down one 4-star recruit and down one player who could handle the ball next season.

Flowers would have given the Cardinals a primary ball handler and a player that could be an anchor for the team that could run the offense in a way Louisville wasn’t able to run last year. Skyy Clark will probably be the starting point guard coming into next season and although he is a quality talent he only played 13 games for Illinois last season before he decided to transfer and not finish the rest of his games last season.

Then there is Ty-Laur Johnson and Koron Davis who are true freshman who have no NCAA experience. Louisville is a team that needs experienced basketball players and no position values playing experience more than the point guard position in basketball. Johnson and Davis will at some point recieve playing time with the Cardinals but it’s hard to see either of them carrying the load at the point guard position for the Cards next season.

Clark will likely get most play time at the point guard position over any other players. Clark is with no doubt one of the most talented players on the team but his experience and no one to truly mentor him is something that can have fans weary going into next season.

Louisville has players that can make plays and hopefully some of the incoming players will be able to create some of their own offense next season. However, something Louisville was missing last season was that true point guard energy from any of the players. El Ellis was no doubt the best player on the team last year, but when it came to distributing the ball Louisville was really struggling.

Payne has essentially brought in his team by now and has been getting them to gel over the summer. Payne now has to rely on getting his team ready to play and molding the talent with these players into good team play on the basketball court.

Clark’s point guard play will determine the outcome of many games next season for the Cardinals and his ability to set the offense, run plays, and make good passes will no doubt be the most important key when determining if Louisville will be a good basketball team next season.