Chris Mack searching for roster balance for Louisville program

Chris Mack is still seeking roster balance early into his third offseason as the head coach for Louisville men’s basketball.

When Mack and his coaching staff was hired in March 2018, they didn’t have time to recruit any high school players that could compete in the ACC. Three graduate transfers, Christen Cunningham, Akoy Agau and Khwan Fore filled out Louisville’s roster in 2018-19.

Louisville hasn’t been able to quite break away from the using graduate transfers in the past two offseasons. Lamarr "Fresh" Kimble and Keith Oddo, a walk-on, were graduate transfers on the 2019-20 team.

After Darius Perry decided to transfer and Jay Scrubb, who signed with Louisville in November, decided to pursue a career professionally, Louisville’s backcourt needed help. Radford graduate transfer Carlik Jones and San Francisco graduate transfer Charles Minlend, Jr. signed with the Cardinals this week.

Mack said utilizing graduate transfers to fill a roster is a reality for college basketball now.

“In a perfect world you would have kids arrive on campus as freshman and they just sort of grow, improve, get better, then down the line those guys become juniors and seniors,” Mack said.

Louisville won’t have any juniors in the program next season. Mack said it’s a direct reflection of not bringing in any freshman in his first offseason.

Malik Williams is the only player in the five-member 2017 recruiting class that reached his senior year at Louisville.

Brian Bowen never played a game for Louisville amid an FBI wire tap investigation from his recruitment, Lance Thomas transferred after his freshman year, Jordan Nwora decided to forgo his senior year to pursue a professional career while Perry entered the transfer portal in March.

Mack hopes to fill out rosters with an equal amount of underclassmen and upperclassmen.

“We have to make sure our roster stays as balanced as it can, so there might be a necessity for a few years to have some grad transfers until we can get on stable footing with the younger guys,” Mack said.