Louisville Officially Announces Addition of Guard Skyy Clark

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - The Louisville men's basketball program has officially added former Illinois guard and five-star prospect Skyy Clark, the program announced Wednesday, which marks the first day of the regular signing period.

"We're fortunate to have an elite point guard in Skyy who's very talented and gifted, but more importantly has the character needed to be a Louisville Cardinal," head coach Kenny Payne said in a release "His ability to score, distribute and run a basketball team as a leader is what we need. In order to truly change a culture, you need guys that have the mental makeup on and off the court to do the right things, and he's an example of one of the players that this community will love watching grow."

The 6-foot-3, 200-pound point guard was able to crack the starting rotation for Illinois as a true freshman this past season, playing in their first 13 games of the season with 12 starts. During that stretch, he averaged 7.0 points, 3.7 assists and 2.1 assists per game while shooting 41.1 percent from the field and 33.3 percent on three-point attempts.

Back on Jan. 6, the Los Angeles native announced that he would be stepping away from basketball due to "personal reasons." He would not play another game for the Fighting Illini.

Coming out of high school, Clark was ranked as the No. 33 overall prospect in the Class of 2022's final 247Sports Composite rankings. The Montverde (Fla.) Academy guard peaked as high as No. 10 in the metric. Clark was a one-time Kentucky signee before asking for his release from his National Letter of Intent and eventually choosing Illinois.

Louisville went just 4-28 this past season in their first year under Payne, and roster management has been in full swing since the end of their season. Louisville has seen seven players enter the transfer portal, including leading scorer El Ellis. Only Mike James, J.J. Traynor, Brandon Huntley-Hatfield and Emmanuel Okorafor are returning.

Conversely, Payne and his staff have been hard at work attempting to bring in fresh talent for next season. So far this offseason, Louisville has landed Clark, five-star 2023 center Dennis Evans and five-star 2023 reclass wing Trentyn Flowers. They are also set to welcome top-70 wings Kaleb Glenn and Curtis Williams Jr., plus JUCO guard Koron Davis as part of their 2023 signing class.

Clark, Glenn and Williams are the only newcomers to officially sign with Louisville so far.

(Photo of Skyy Clark: Ron Johnson - USA TODAY Sports)

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