What Mason Faulkner Brings to Louisville
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - It has been a busy offseason for the Louisville men's basketball program. To make up for the influx of players departing due to the NBA, transfer portal or graduation, the Cardinals brought in seven high quality newcomers.
Even with the talent arriving and talent remaining, there were still some questions that remained, one oh which revolved around the backcourt's depth. Newcomers Jarrod West, El Ellis and Noah Locke do give Louisville some versatility between the one and two positions, but are the only true guards on the roster. Dre Davis and Michael James can play in the backcourt at times, but another true guard was needed.
On Monday, the Cardinals landed exactly what they were looking for, and welcomed newcomer No. 8. Louisville announced that former Western Carolina guard Mason Faulkner, who had enrolled with Colorado earlier this offseason before opting to move back to Kentucky, had signed with the program as a graduate transfer.
The 6-foot-1, 190-pound point guard averaged a team-best 16.9 points, accompanied by 5.5 rebounds and 4.8 assists. He also shot 45.5% from the field, 35.5% on three point attempts, and 76.2% at the free throw line. Injury limited him to just 22 of WCU's 37 games, but was still named Third Team All-SoCon.
But beyond his stat line, what else does Faulkner bring to the table for the Cardinals?
First of all, his addition will properly allow Louisville to operate at a much faster pace than the previous year. Bringing on assistant coach Ross McMains to revamp the offense in terms of pace, is nice, but it's hard to do so with only three true guards. Regardless of the depth chart, Louisville now has both a starting and backup backcourt, which is a vast improvement over last season, where the program relied on Carlik Jones and David Johnson to play nearly 40 minutes every night.
Speaking of Carlik Jones, Faulkner also shares one his traits: showing up in the big moments. In road games against Georgia, Florida State and Xavier during his redshirt junior year, he averaged 18.7 points, 5.7 assists and 3.0 rebounds. He also connected on three game-winners during his redshirt senior season, against Tennessee Tech, The Citadel, and in the SoCon Championship against UNC Greensboro.
Finally, he can be both a prolific scorer and a stat sheet stuffer. He scored 20+ points in eight of his 22 games played as a redshirt senior, and 13 of his 31 games during his redshirt junior year - including a career-best 31 points vs. Chattanooga. Not only that, but he has the only two triple-doubles in Western Carolina history, logging 13 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists vs. North Carolina A&T; and 16 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists against Samford.
Bottom line, this is a great pickup that helps Louisville in a variety of ways. First and foremost, his addition helps ensure that the program will indeed be able to operate at a much fast pace in 2021-22. With his playmaking ability as a scorer and distributer, Faulkner could even enter the rotation as a starter when the season begins.
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