What to What For During Louisville's Bahamas Summer League Games

The Cardinals will face Bahamas Select and the University of Calgary Dinos as part of the Baha Mar Hoops Summer League.

Louisville coach Pat Kelsey works with his team during practice before the Cards head to the Bahamas. / Michael Clevenger/Courier Journal / USA

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - We still have just over three months until the return of college basketball, but we'll get our first look at the 2024-25 Louisville men's basketball team later this week.

Led by first year head coach Pat Kelsey, the Cardinals are embarking on a summer foreign trip to The Bahamas. They will be participating in the Baha Mar Hoops Summer League, where the Cardinals will play a pair of exhibition games.

Louisville will first face Bahamas Select on Tuesday, July 30 at 7:00 p.m. EST, then two days later will take on the University of Calgary Dinos on Thursday, Aug.1 at 12:00 p.m. EST.

Considering that Louisville is bringing in an entirely new roster for the 2024-25 season on top of welcoming a new coaching staff, there are storylines a-plenty surrounding the Cardinals heading into year one of the Pat Kelsey era. Below are the three key things to watch out for when UofL laces 'em up down in the Bahamas:

The Tempo and Kelsey's Substitution Patterns

One of the most-asked and debated questions at this current juncture, especially amongst the fanbase, is who the starting five is going to be. Given the amount of impact transfers Louisville brought in and how versatile the entire roster is, Kelsey and Co. have a variety of options to go with.

Related: Crafting Various Lineups for Louisville in 2024-25

However, whichever starting lineup Louisville goes with, don't expect it to dominate the entire game. During his time as a head coach, Pat Kelsey-led teams have been one of the most up tempo squads in college basketball. In his last nine seasons, his only team to not crack the top-50 in KenPom's adjusted tempo metric was last seasons, and four have cracked the top-20.

As a result, Kelsey has routinely substituted players on and off the court at a much higher rate than most college coaches do. For instance, during his final season at Charleston, no one averaged more than 26.0 minutes per game, seven averaged 20.0 minutes per game, and 10 players played in at least 30 of Charleston's 35 games.

Because most of Louisville's players are position versatile, Kelsey and Co. have the option to employ several different lineups depending on what they want. It wouldn't be surprising at all if they substituted players at a breakneck pace down in the Bahamas just to get a feel for as many of those lineups as they can.

The Amount of Three-Point Shots

On top of just operating at a fast pace, Kelsey's five-out offensive system has always catered well to the three-pointer. In his 12 prior seasons as a head coach, his teams have shot 35.0 percent or better from long distance in seven of them. His teams also take a lot of threes, as they have ranked in the top-60 in percentage of total field goal attempts (3PA/FGA) eight times.

Not only does the system bode well for longe range shooters, the majority of Louisville's roster can hit threes with ease. Eight of the transfer newcomers shot at least 32 percent from three last season, six of them shot 35 percent or better, while three connected on 39 percent or better. Reyne Smith hit 39.5 percent of his attempts and was ninth nationally in made threes at 112, J'Vonne Hadley connected on 41.7 percent of his threes, while Kobe Rodgers was a blazing 45.0 percent - although he is redshirting.

Even some of the transfers who had "down" seasons last year when shooting the three have shown that they can hit them at a high caliber. Terrence Edwards Jr. hit them at 34.3 clip last season, but was an astounding 45.8 percent the year before. Chucky Hepburn connected on 32.3 percent of his long balls this year, but was 40.5 percent in 2022-23. While Aly Khalifa hit 31.5 percent of his and won't play this season, he still was 38.1 percent the year before.

Of course, there will still be an offensive attack that doesn't involve the long ball. Whether it's slashing, driving, cutting, or posting up, everyone on the roster has some sort of inside game they excel at. But considering that three-point shooting should be a strength of this team, it will be interesting to see how much they go to it in the Bahamas.

The New Defensive System and its Execution

After two years of watching Louisville struggle on the defensive end because of a lack of any sort of system, the Cardinals finally have an identity on that end of the floor. While he is a Chris Mack protege, the pack-line defense isn't coming back like many remember it. Kelsey's defense might not put on a full blown full-court press, but they do extend farther beyond the perimeter than you would expect from a more traditional pack-line. There is a lot of heavy ball pressure.

The execution of this system in years past, however, has left a little to be desired. Of his 12 prior teams, just two of them cracked the top-100 in terms of KenPom's adjusted defensive efficiency. But this can more so be attributed to the fact that Charleston didn't have the opportunity to recruit two-way players like Louisville can - and the Cardinals should get some stout defense this season.

Of the 12 transfers, nine of them had either a steal percentage of over 2.0 percent, or a block percentage of over 3.0 percent. With a few of these newcomers - such as Chucky Hepburn, Aboubacar Traore and Kasean Pryor - you can go as far to say that they are defensive stalwarts.

There are bound to be some early-season hiccups when trying to get the kinks ironed out on defense. But at the very minimum, Louisville has the pieces to put together a competent defense that has a potentially high ceiling.

(Photo of Pat Kelsey: Michael Clevenger - Courier Journal / USA)

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