LOUISVILLE, Ky. ( WDRB) — Practicing safe browsing is the reminder University of Louisville athletic director Josh Heird always gives and tries to remember in his daily encounters with social media.
Any time you are the person directing a coaching search, you quickly discover the posse of insiders who know more about what you’re doing than you know.
“Of course, everything on Twitter is true,” Heird said Friday night at the Cards’ spring football game.
“I learned that over the last month.”
But like you, me and everybody else invested in watching winning college basketball, Heird cannot always resist the ying and the yang of social media proclamations about which players might be coming and going to the program new coach Pat Kelsey plans to build at the University of Louisville.
The latest bump is that at least another $2 million was raised for the school’s NIL collective. Knowing that, when Heird read the Cards cracked the final three choices of productive and prospective players from a Power 5 program, he knew life was about to get interesting around the Cards’ program.
“I think (the latest collective fundraiser) showed Pat, ‘Hey, you’re going to have the support you need to build the roster and the team you want to build,'” Heird said.
“I don’t want to say he’s had no limits, but it’s been pretty close to like, ‘Hey, go put this team together.’
“And that’s what he’s doing. (Kelsey) and his staff are working around the clock. And it’s been fun …
“… and I’ll be thumbing through Twitter and it’s like, ‘Oh, Louisville contacted this guy and he’s down to three schools?’ I didn’t know that.”
That might have been the moment that a college basketball coach that I trust told me Louisville was the team to beat for Chucky Hepburn of Wisconsin. An honorable mention all-Big Ten point guard the last two seasons, Hepburn has an unassailable reputation as a defender as well a Badger, the Wisconsin mascot, tattooed on the inside of his left arm.
But Hepburn is officially on the move — and at least two national recruiting folks have filed crystal balls that he is bound for Louisville. Maybe there is room for a Cardinal tattoo on his other arm. Stay tuned.
Know this: The Cards are in on their share of talented players.
Won’t get them all. Nobody gets them all — or close to them all. Check the comings and goings at Duke, Kentucky, Arizona and others. Roster churn is in overdrive everywhere.
Every scholarship player from Kenny Payne’s 8-24 team chose to take advantage of the NCAA transfer portal. At last count, four former Cards settled on their new locations:
JJ Traynor (DePaul); Brandon Huntley-Hatfield (North Carolina State); Skyy Clark (UCLA) and Tre White (Illinois).
Louisville has filled five of its 13 scholarship spots: Reyne Smith and James Scott, who will follow Kelsey and his staff from the College of Charleston; Terrence Edwards Jr., voted the Sun Belt Conference player of the year as a forward at James Madison University; J’Vonne Hadley, a solid forward who can make three-point field goals from Colorado; and center Aly Khalifa, a center from Brigham Young who will redshirt next season while rehabilitating from knee surgery.
It’s only been 23 days.
“I mean, he’s just a ton of energy,” Heird said. “(So is) his staff.
“I think more than anything, and like it’s one of the things people need to understand because he is, you know, he’s out there. He’s getting people excited, but he has a plan to put a team together and really, really succeed at a high level.”
