No, Pat Kelsey couldn’t tell you what Louisville basketball‘s starting lineup will look like when the Cardinals begin a highly anticipated 2025-26 season with an exhibition against Kansas at the KFC Yum! Center.
But the coach knows this: The members of his Year 2 roster are “two feet in on winning and being a championship-caliber program.”
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“We think we have some of the most competitive practices in the country,” Kelsey told reporters Wednesday, during his first news conference since U of L’s 2024-25 campaign ended with a loss to Creighton in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. “That’s where roles are defined; that’s where minutes are starting to be divvied up. That process will go all through the fall into the first game.
“I think everybody’s probably saying right now, this time of year, ‘Depth is our strength.’ I really believe we have one of the deepest teams in the country.”
Here are three takeaways from Wednesday’s Q&A session with Kelsey and four of his players:
After eligibility scare, Aly Khalifa gives Louisville basketball a ‘very, very dangerous weapon’
Louisville center Aly Khalifa during Louisville Live at the KFC Yum! Center Friday night. Oct. 4, 2024
Louisville didn’t reveal that the NCAA had deemed redshirt senior center Aly Khalifa ineligible for the 2025-26 season until the middle of May. On Wednesday, the 7-foot Egyptian told reporters he learned of the ruling in April.
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“It was very stressful,” said Khalifa, who was sidelined during the 2024-25 campaign while recovering from surgery to repair a hole in the cartilage of his left knee. “If I wasn’t eligible, I didn’t know what the next step (would have been).”
That’s in the past now. Late last month, Kelsey gathered the team and athletics department personnel to share the good news: Khalifa’s appeal was a success.
“I’m so happy for Aly,” Kelsey said. “He’s one of the most skilled big guys in the country. I think he’s one of the top-five passing bigs in the world. He gives us a very, very dangerous weapon.”
“I haven’t seen it before — besides (Nikola) Jokić,” added freshman point guard Mikel Brown Jr., referring to the three-time NBA Most Valuable Player. “He’s the closest thing to Jokić when it comes to passing.
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“It’s so easy to play with him; just being able to hit him at the top of the key and (knowing) he’s going to make the right play every single time. It’s truly a blessing to be able to play with him.”
In his most recent season, as a junior playing for Kentucky coach Mark Pope at BYU, Khalifa appeared in 29 of the Cougars’ 34 games and led the Big 12 (and all DI centers) with a 3.6 assist-turnover ratio to go along with 5.7 points and 3.7 rebounds across 19.4 minutes per contest. He did this despite being limited by the aforementioned knee injury and, during the course of his rehab, cut his weight from 299 to 250 pounds with the help of strength coach Eli Foy.
“I definitely feel a lot faster than (when) I played at BYU,” Khalifa said. “It took a lot of pain off my knees and legs, and that was my main problem; that’s why I started getting injured — because I was too heavy on my knees. I just feel a lot lighter and a lot better. I’m really excited.”
‘Hairy-chest freshmen’? Louisville basketball’s international signees making presence felt
Sananda Fru surveys the court during a Louisville basketball practice at the Planet Fitness Kueber Center. Fru joined the Cardinals after four seasons with Löwen Braunschweig in Germany’s Basketball Bundesliga.
Brown has, understandably, commanded the most attention of Louisville’s newcomers to the Division I level after impressing during USA Basketball’s run to gold in the FIBA U19 World Cup.
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There are, however, three others worth keeping an eye on — international signees Mouhamed Camara, Sananda Fru and Evangelos “Vangelis” Zougris, who all arrived on campus for the start of the second summer session. Wednesday was the first time Kelsey went in depth on what he has seen from the trio.
Camara, a 6-8 forward out of NBA Academy Africa, is the closest thing to a traditional freshman of the bunch. “His best basketball is ahead of him,” Kelsey said of the 20-year-old from Senegal. “He’s got unbelievable potential.”
“Everyone knew he was an athletic freak coming in,” redshirt senior guard Kobe Rodgers added. “A simple couple plays that he’s made in the two or three live practices that we’ve had kind of put you in awe. … Mo, I think, has shown bursts of a special player in the making.”
Fru, a 6-11 German forward who will turn 22 years old in August, and Zougris, a 6-8 Greek forward who will be 21 when the season tips off, fall into the rapidly growing ranks of “hairy-chest freshmen,” Kelsey said — although it was unclear as of Wednesday just how many years of collegiate eligibility they’ll be granted after they both spent several seasons playing professionally overseas.
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“Competing at such a high level against grown men puts them way ahead of the curve in terms of the adjustment (to college),” Kelsey said. “… They’re both phenomenal in pick-and-roll coverage. Part of it’s that they’ve been coached at a really high level; but their ability to defend the pick and roll both as switch defenders — (Fru) is 6-11 but can really move his feet and guard a guard on a switch — and in their coverages, as well.”
Pat Kelsey on Louisville basketball’s 2025-26 schedule: ‘We’re not ducking the smoke’
Louisville basketball coach Pat Kelsey spoke with the media during a news conference July 16.
In the moment, Kelsey did what he could to move past Louisville receiving a No. 8 seed in the 2025 NCAA Tournament despite losing only one game from Dec. 21 through March 14 and finishing second in the ACC Tournament.
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After the dust settled on the Cards’ first-round March Madness exit, however, he wanted to figure out why. That brought him to North Carolina athletics director Bubba Cunningham, the chair of the NCAA Tournament’s Selection Committee.
This is what he told him: “They’re human beings in a room; and they’re all going to decide what they’re going to decide.”
“That person might like the KenPom metric; that guy might like the NET; that guy might just do the eye test,” Kelsey said. “They’re human beings, and they’re not held to a structured standard of selection.”
Kelsey decided to make their lives easier — at the cost of making his harder. U of L scheduled nonconference games against Baylor, Cincinnati, Indiana and Memphis knowing it also had the annual showdown against archrival Kentucky, the ACC/SEC Challenge and the finale of a home-and-home series against Tennessee on the books.
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“What I want to do is make sure that, when we get there and the Selection Committee is looking at us, they know one thing: Louisville didn’t duck the smoke,” Kelsey said. “You can’t sharpen your teeth eating oatmeal. Whether it ends up being the best strategy in the world, I don’t know; but that’s what we decided. Bring it.”
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: Louisville basketball: Pat Kelsey’s 2025-26 roster, schedule takeaways
