College basketball’s early signing period runs Nov. 13-20, and Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey is still searching for the first member of his 2025 recruiting class.
What, if anything, should Cardinals fans make of this?
It’s a reflection of the sport’s changing landscape — and the abbreviated timeline U of L’s new regime had to work with upon arriving on campus in late March needing to, first and foremost, build a team for Year 1 from scratch.
To their credit, Kelsey and his staff have quickly garnered interest from prominent high school prospects in the 2025 cycle and beyond after the program hit historic new lows under former coach Kenny Payne. But at some point, that momentum needs to translate into verbal commitments and signed financial aid agreements.
Only five of the 13 scholarship players on Kelsey’s inaugural roster will have eligibility remaining to return in 2025-26, if they don’t want to enter the NCAA transfer portal: seniors Aly Khalifa, and Kobe Rodgers, who are redshirting in 2024-25 while recovering from injuries, junior Koren Johnson, sophomore James Scott and freshman Khani Rooths.
Starting next year, Division I men’s basketball coaches can have up to 15 scholarship players at their disposal. The change is part of a settlement of three athlete-compensation antitrust cases against the NCAA and its power conferences.
Of the 28 players in the Class of 2025 with reported scholarship offers from Louisville on 247Sports, only 10 were uncommitted at the time of publication.
The curtain just rose on Kelsey’s first season with the Cards, which could go a long way in making one of the sport’s 15 all-time winningest programs more attractive to the next generation, but it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye toward the future. Here are three things to consider with the early signing period approaching:
Speaking with reporters last month at ACC Tipoff, Kelsey compared roster building in the portal era to “a diversified portfolio in investing.”
High schoolers will play an important role in what he’s trying to build at Louisville, especially with the horde of players who were granted additional eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic on the way out.
“You have to have a diversified roster,” Kelsey said. “You might have some major, major impact freshmen who are making a major impact right away and potentially will only be there for a year or two. Obviously, you’ve got to recruit those guys but then also have guys on your roster who you think can come in and grow and be there for several years — the old-school way, back when the internet was slow and all that stuff. Then, you have to be able to supplement your roster and use that resource of the portal by adding to your experience.”
Money was on his mind in more of the literal sense, too — specifically, name, image and likeness compensation.
“You have your priority recruits, who you’re going after with every fiber of your being,” he said. “Then, there are other factors involved. There are, basically, valuations, right? There are financial implications now; with the NIL space, you have to assess what kind of percentage of your cap, if you will — because everybody kind of has a cap. You have to look at it that way, how expensive somebody is.
“If you overspend on a — not overspend, but, like: If a freshman becomes a guy who’s going to command too much money, what percentage of the money that you’re going to have from an NIL standpoint are you going to commit to that freshman? That’s just a new dynamic in recruiting. You have to take those things into consideration. You feel like you’re in an NBA front office, so to speak — not really so to speak; it kind of is. The way that you evaluate, the way that you go about your recruiting.”
In late October, On3’s Joe Tipton reported that Louisville and Alabama were “carrying momentum” in the recruitment of Mikel Brown Jr., a consensus top-three point guard in the 2025 cycle out of DME Academy in Orlando, Florida.
Tipton also noted that Brown is “likely waiting” until the spring before committing, meaning this battle is far from over.
Brown took an unofficial visit to U of L in September and, according to Tipton’s report, is tentatively planning to come back for an official visit Dec. 8; when Kelsey’s team opens ACC play against Duke at the KFC Yum! Center.
Brown officially visited Alabama in January. Tipton’s report says he aims to check in with Nate Oats and the Crimson Tide again in an unofficial capacity at some point during the coming months.
Per 247Sports, Brown has taken official visits to Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Ole Miss, Providence and UCF in the past year. He is scheduled to visit Arizona in late November.
Kelsey and his staff proved they can go toe to toe with anyone in the portal this past offseason, and there’s a good chance they’ll have to do it again to replace the bulk of Louisville’s eight players who are exhausting their eligibility in 2024-25.
“Back in the day, when you had five scholarships to fill in the spring, you’d be freaking out; there’d be no shot,” Kelsey said. “It is a whole new dynamic.”
In 2025, the portal window will be 15 days shorter than it was this year. Players can begin entering it the day after the end of the NCAA Tournament’s second round, not Selection Sunday, and will be shut out 30 days later. As long as they’re in it before it closes, they can take their time finding a new home.
Will the truncated window result in fewer names to choose from? Will the later start date have high schoolers holding out longer to see how the chips fall? We’ll have to wait and see, but the safe bet is that it will no doubt loom large in what’s become a topsy-turvy time of the year.
“Portal recruiting hits, really, before the buzzer sounds,” Kelsey said.
Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
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