Year 1 of Pat Kelsey‘s Louisville basketball revival has come to an end.
Now, after leading the Cardinals to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019, the 49-year-old Cincinnati native turns his attention toward sustained success.
Step 1: replacing the following scholarship players, who have exhausted their eligibility:
There’s no guarantee that the six names listed above will be the only departures. The NCAA transfer portal opens for business March 24, and who knows how things will shake out from there.
Here’s a breakdown of the U of L players who are in line to return in 2025-26, if they don’t elect to pursue greener pastures elsewhere, and the newcomers who committed to Kelsey during his inaugural campaign:
Hepburn is passing the torch of “Point Guard U” to Mikel Brown Jr., the 29th McDonald’s All-American in Louisville history. The 6-foot-3 floor general is a product of DME Academy in Daytona Beach, Florida, and ranks among the top 10 players in the 2025 cycle, regardless of position, on the 247Sports Composite. In February, ESPN had him as a lottery pick in its first 2026 NBA Draft projections.
Sananda Fru is a 6-11, 245-pound destroyer of rims in Germany’s top-flight Basketball Bundesliga, where he’s played since 2021. A source close to the U of L program told The Courier Journal that the 21-year-old “should” have two years of collegiate eligibility upon arriving in the 502. Fru was an early entrant for the 2023 NBA Draft but later withdrew his name from consideration.
J’Vonne Hadley, U of L’s consummate glue guy, is the first of two fifth-year Cards who can take advantage of a December court ruling that prohibits the NCAA from counting time players spend at the junior-college level toward their eligibility clock. The 6-6 native of St. Paul, Minnesota, was U of L’s top rebounder in 2024-25.
Koren Johnson tore his labrum in mid-November. A couple weeks later, the 6-2 junior guard from Seattle took to social media to announce he was undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery and would pursue a medial redshirt. Johnson, who was named Pac-12 Sixth Man of the Year as a sophomore at Washington, totaled six points on 3-for-11 shooting, five assists and three steals across appearances in Louisville’s first two games of the season (19.5 minutes per).
Regarded as one of the best passing big men in the country, Aly Khalifa is the first of two Louisville seniors who redshirted in 2024-25 while recovering from injuries they dealt with at their previous stops. The 6-11 Egyptian, who joined Louisville from BYU, underwent surgery to repair a hole in the cartilage of his left knee; which he said has been bothering him since his collegiate career began at Charlotte.
Louisville’s season changed significantly when Kasean Pryor tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis championship game. During a January road trip to Syracuse, the 6-10 forward told radio play-by-play announcer Paul Rogers “there’s definitely (the) potential” of him returning to the Cards; whether it be via a medical redshirt or the additional year of eligibility he’s in line to receive due to his time in the JUCO ranks.
Kobe Rodgers joined Khalifa in redshirting this season after suffering a leg injury during Charleston’s first-round loss in the 2024 NCAA Tournament. That was the 6-3 Cincinnati native’s first campaign with Kelsey; and he finished it averaging 9.7 points on 50% shooting, 4.6 rebounds, 1.2 steals and a 1.4 assist-turnover ratio. Before signing with the Cougars, Rodgers was part of a Nova Southeastern team that went 36-0 and won the Division II national championship.
The lone freshman on Louisville’s 2024-25 roster, 6-8 forward Khani Rooths, showed flashes of potential throughout the season and threw down some of the most electrifying dunks of the campaign. “The thing that you can 100,000% count on,” Kelsey said, “is that kid’s going to empty the tank every time he takes the floor. Everything he does, he does with everything he’s got.”
Speaking of dunks, only one Louisville player in program history has throw down more during a single season than James Scott did during his first go-around with the Cards: Montrezl Harrell. During an interview with The Field of 68 in January, Kelsey said the 6-11 native of Fayetteville, North Carolina, is “one of my favorite players I’ve ever coached. “I’ve never met a more devoted, committed basketball player.”
Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
