Louisville’s leading scorer enters transfer portal

After an abysmal 13-19 season, a lot of changes have been made by the Louisville Cardinals men’s basketball program. The most notable of which was bringing in former Kentucky assistant coach and Cardinal alum Kenny Payne to be the school’s next head coach.

Payne is currently constructing his staff, earlier today hiring top Duke assistant Nolan Smith, and beginning to recruit next season’s roster.

With coaching changes inevitably comes roster movement and today the Cardinal’s leading scorer, Noah Locke, announced he would be transferring from the program.

Originally transferring in from the Florida Gators, Locked averaged 9.6 points this past season for Louisville, shooting 34.2% from three. Locke will be the fourth Cardinal to announce that he will be transferring, joining Gabe Wizntizer, Samuell Williamson, and Matt Cross.

While Louisville’s current talent level has much to be desired, I am sure Payne would have liked to have kept a 34% three-point shooter on the roster. With Locke now in the portal, Louisville is left with only one true remaining guard on its roster. It doesn’t help that the program is facing more heat from the NCAA.

However, as he showed at Kentucky, Payne is a talented recruiter and has been courting former Kentucky point guard commit Skyy Clark and Kentucky transfer Dontaie Allen. Perhaps losing Locke will help Payne sell one or both of those former Cats to join Louisville’s roster.