NCAA Basketball: 12 teams with most pressure to win in 2023-24 season
1. Louisville Cardinals
For all of the other teams on this list, it’s been either about making a deep run in the NCAA Tournament or just getting their name called on Selection Sunday. For Louisville, expectations are slightly down compared to that after what happened last year. After parting ways with Chris Mack, the Cardinals hired Kenny Payne to turn the program around.
However, roster mismanagement in his first offseason proved to be deadly, as they finished with a historically awful 4-28 overall record, including 2-18 in ACC play. Not only were there double-digit blowout defeats but they also lost to the likes of Bellarmine, Wright State, Appalachian State, and Lipscomb.
There has been some hope that the new roster is good enough to improve by a lot. However, the recent departure of five-star prospect Trentyn Flowers and the unknown academic eligibility of freshman guard Ty-Laur Johnson has the point guard situation once again in a potentially dicey situation. They’ll need USC wing transfer Tre White to become a star to have any chance of getting out of the ACC basement.
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Who knows what the benchmark will have to be to keep Coach Payne around but outside of the national title contenders like Purdue, no team is going to have as many eyeballs on it as Louisville. It’s going to be tough to get to the postseason but for a program with as many resources and expectations as the Cardinals, they’re going to have to get close.