Kenny Payne was selective in using the NCAA transfer portal to construct his 2023-24 Louisville men’s basketball roster.
Seven scholarship players from Payne’s inaugural team hit the portal and landed elsewhere after the worst season in modern U of L history ended. He rebuilt with three Division I transfers, one junior-college product and five high-school signees, one of whom left the program in August to jump start his professional career in Australia.
“It’s a microwave type of situation,” Payne said during an offseason interview with CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein. “You can go and get guys out of the portal and have success for a year. I would rather build a program and do it the right way and get young people to have a good mixture of veteran guys so that you have some stability — not just for a year but over time, year after year, and do it the right way.”
Only time will tell if Payne’s approach pays off — when summer workouts ended in July he said his mix of newcomers and upperclassmen have the “ingredients to be a winning basketball team.” But there’s no denying the portal will continue to drastically reshape the college basketball landscape.
It entices players with the prospect of thriving with a change of scenery. It gives coaches the ability to inject experience into their rotations. San Diego State’s run to the Final Four is proof it can work.
According to an Aug. 17 report from Transfer Portal for Playing Time, 1,815 DI players opted to transfer this offseason — 998 had found new homes, and 817 hadn’t. Of those players, 717 were freshmen; 452 were sophomores; 523 were juniors and 123 were seniors with one final season of eligibility remaining.
Here’s a look at Louisville’s DI footprint — 14 ex-Cardinals suiting up on scholarship for other teams this season:
Fabio Basili (G, Texas Arlington)
Fabio Basili was the last of Louisville’s seven scholarship players who left after the 2022-23 season to find a home through the transfer portal, choosing to play for Texas Arlington and former Kentucky assistant coach K.T. Turner. He appeared in 17 games (8.3 minutes per) as a freshman, totaling 27 points on 27% shooting with 23 rebounds, nine steals and 10 assists against 11 turnovers.
Matt Cross arrived at Louisville from Miami and averaged 5.8 points on 38.4% shooting with 3.9 rebounds per game while starting nine of his 28 appearances during the 2021-22 campaign. He transferred closer to home upon hitting the portal that offseason. As a junior at UMass in 2022-23, the Beverly, Massachusetts, native started 23 games, averaged 12.2 points and led the Minutemen with 6.3 rebounds per contest. UMass went 15-16 (6-12 A-10) and saw its NCAA tournament drought grow to nine years.
Sydney Curry (F, Grand Canyon)
Sydney Curry’s best stretch of games with the Cardinals came at the tail end of the 2021-22 season, his first after transferring in from the junior-college ranks. He was a shell of that player when Payne gave him a bigger role during the 2022-23 campaign, averaging just 4.9 points and 4.3 rebounds across 17.5 minutes per contest. He decided to use his final year of college eligibility at Grand Canyon.
Dre Davis sounded optimistic about the prospects of playing for Payne when the coach arrived at Louisville on March 18, 2022, but ended up hitting the portal after averaging 7.4 points, 3.1 rebounds and 0.9 assists per game across 50 appearances (40 starts) between 2020-22. He landed with his brother, ex-Cardinals signee Tae Davis, at Seton Hall and was the first player off the bench for the Pirates as a junior during the 2022-23 campaign, averaging 9.6 points on 52% shooting with 3.3 rebounds per contest. Seton Hall went 17-16 (10-10 Big East) and missed the NCAA tournament.
An All-ACC honorable mention in 2022-23, El Ellis shouldered a grueling workload as a senior and became one of only five U of L players since 1992 to score 565 points and dish out 140 assists in a season, joining Russ Smith, Francisco Garcia, Reece Gaines and DeJuan Wheat. Before his final game at the KFC Yum! Center, Ellis said he planned to test the NBA draft waters at the end of the season but ruled out the possibility of transferring, saying, “If I’m going to come back and go to college again, I’m going to come back to Louisville, because I didn’t finish the way I wanted to.” Two weeks later, he entered his name in the portal and landed at Arkansas.
It was a big deal when former Louisville head coach Chris Mack beat Kentucky to land Aidan Igiehon, one of 247Sports’ top 60 players in the 2019 cycle, but Igiehon’s time with the Cardinals failed to live up to the hype. He played just two seasons at U of L, totaling 26 points and 25 rebounds in 19 appearances off the bench (5.4 minutes per) before leaving for Grand Canyon. There, he ranked 10th on the team in scoring (2.7 points per game) in 2021-22 and 11th (2.6) in 2022-23 while averaging just three rebounds a contest for his career with the Antelopes. He signed with Abilene Christian during the offseason.
The first player to sign with Louisville during Payne’s tenure, Kamari Lands, was also the first player from the 2022-23 team to enter the portal after the Cardinals’ first-round exit at the ACC Tournament. Lands, who ended up at Arizona State, told On3.com he and the U of L staff came to a “mutual decision to part ways.” He appeared in every game (six starts) as a freshman and averaged 5.9 points on 32% shooting while grabbing 1.9 rebounds in 21 minutes per contest.
The first commit of the Mack era, Josh Nickelberry left Louisville after two seasons having totaled only 37 points, 10 rebounds and four assists in 24 appearances off the bench (7.3 minutes per) between 2019-21. He’s returning to the ACC with Florida State for his final season of college eligibility in after being named the A-10’s Sixth Man of the Year as a senior at La Salle, which went 15-19 (7-11) in 2022-23 and missed the NCAA tournament for the 10th consecutive season. Since transferring from U of L, Nickelberry has averaged 11 points on 41% shooting (38.3% from 3) with 46 assists against 76 turnovers across 63 games (40 starts).
Devin Ree was ranked No. 75 by 247Sports in the 2022 cycle when he flipped from LSU to U of L after Payne’s arrival but got just 67 minutes of run in 16 games off the bench as a freshman, totaling 14 points, 10 rebounds three blocks and two steals. A product of prep powerhouse Oak Hill Academy, Ree is starting fresh with Louisiana Tech.
Quinn Slazinski is at his third school in five years. He left Louisville in 2021 after totaling 139 points and 81 rebounds across 36 appearances (eight starts) between his freshman and sophomore seasons. Under Rick Pitino’s guidance at Iona, he took on a bigger role as a junior and helped the Gaels finish 25-8 (17-3 MAAC) by averaging 8.4 points per game in 33 games. His senior campaign was derailed by injury just seven games in. Slazinski planned to follow Pitino to St. John’s this offseason, then left for West Virginia the day after the Red Storm landed Tennessee transfer Chris Ledlum.
Roosevelt Wheeler (F/C, VCU)
Roosevelt Wheeler’s Louisville career spanned 46 appearances off the bench (7.8 minutes per) from 2021-23, during which the big man from Richmond, Virginia, scored 63 points, pulled down 85 rebounds and blocked nine shots. Wheeler transferred closer to home, VCU, for his junior season.
A former McDonald’s All-American, Samuell Williamson arrived at Louisville as the crown jewel of a 2019 recruiting class that ranked sixth in the country on Rivals.com. Three up-and-down seasons later, the Rockwall, Texas, native was the first Cardinal to enter the transfer portal after Payne was hired and landed a short drive from home at SMU. Williamson averaged six points on 47% shooting with 4.2 rebounds in 79 games (22 starts) at U of L. As a senior at SMU, he posted 9.3 points and 7.3 rebounds per contest while starting 30 of the Mustangs’ 32 games.
The last player standing from Louisville’s 2019 recruiting class, Jae’Lyn Withers transferred to North Carolina this offseason after appearing in every game (29 starts) for the Cardinals as a redshirt junior. The Charlotte native averaged 8.9 points during the 2022-23 campaign on a career-best 41.7% clip from behind the arc. In 82 games across three years at U of L, he totaled 651 points on 45.8% shooting to go along with 455 rebounds.
Gabe Wiznitzer (C, Ohio)
Gabe Wiznitzer was the first player to enter the portal when Louisville’s 2021-22 season ended. In two years with the Cardinals, he totaled just 15 points and 19 rebounds in 100 minutes across 17 appearances off the bench. As a junior at Ohio, he appeared in 32 games, averaged 13.2 minutes per contest, logged his first college start, scored 106 points and grabbed 104 boards.
Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Where ex-Louisville Cardinals will play college basketball in 2023-24
