Louisville basketball loses to Michigan State, C.L. Brown’s One Take
Sixth-seeded Louisville fell short in the NCAA Tournament’s second round against a three-seeded Michigan State team that was just better.
- Louisville basketball is hosting several key NCAA transfer portal targets on visits this weekend.
- At the top of Pat Kelsey’s wish list: former Kansas big man Flory Bidunga, the top player to hit the market so far this offseason in the eyes of most talent evaluators.
- Here’s what to know about Bidunga and the others who are stopping by campus.
Pat Kelsey is starting college basketball’s free agency period with a bang.
Louisville will host two of the most coveted players in the NCAA transfer portal on Friday in former Kansas big man Flory Bidunga and ex-Oregon point guard Jackson Shelstad, a source close to the program told The Courier Journal on Tuesday, confirming an initial report from On3’s Joe Tipton. They are represented by the same agent.
Multiple reports say former San Francisco wing Tyrone Riley IV is also set to stop by campus for a visit Sunday.
Kelsey has his work cut out for him this offseason. As of Wednesday, the Cardinals had only three scholarship players on their 2026-27 roster — London Johnson, Adrian Wooley and Vangelis Zougris. And they could still opt to hit the portal before it closes at midnight April 22.
Hence the need to swing for the fences out of the gate. Or, as an anonymous agent told 247Sports scouting director Adam Finkelstein earlier in the week, “throwing bags at everyone.”
“They have elite buying power,” Finkelstein added during an appearance on CBS Sports HQ.
Translation: More marquee visits should be on the horizon. Here’s what to know about this weekend’s:
No player to this point has made as big of a splash entering the portal as Bidunga, a 6-10 native of the Democratic Republic of Congo who was crowned Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year as a sophomore at Kansas.
He averaged 13.3 points on 64% shooting, nine rebounds, 2.6 blocks and 1.5 assists across 31.6 minutes per game. His 13 double-doubles ranked second in the Big 12 and 23rd nationally.
To be sure, Louisville has sorely lacked a player of Bidunga’s archetype during Kelsey’s first two seasons at the helm. Last year, it cost the Cards big-time against the sport’s upper echelon. They finished the regular season -60 in paint scoring, -28 in rebounding margin and -23 in second-chance points across nine Quad 1A games.
The competition for Bidunga’s commitment will be stiff. Duke, Michigan and St. John’s are also among the big man’s top suitors, according to a report Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter, from The Field of 68’s Jeff Goodman. And he’ll command a hefty chunk of change as the only Division I player to average more than 13 points, 8.5 rebounds and 2.5 blocks per game in 2025-26.
It says a lot about Shelstad that, after the initial wave of portal entrants, he ranked among 247Sports and ESPN’s top 10 available players despite a hand injury limiting him to only 12 games between Nov. 7 and Dec. 28 during his junior season at Oregon.
That’s because the 6-1 floor general averaged career highs in points (15.6) and assists (4.9) in addition to 2.9 rebounds and 1.4 steals across 34.8 minutes per appearance for the Ducks. Per BartTorvik.com, his 31.7% assist rate ranked ninth in the Big Ten last season; and his 12.6% turnover rate was the third lowest among the conference’s top 10 facilitators.
Shelstad is a career 43.9% shooter and has converted 35.2% of his 3-point attempts (148 for 421). According to CBBAnalytics.com, he ranked in the 98th percentile last season with 10.6 shots taken either at the rim (1.8) or beyond the arc (8.8) per game. That’ll play in Kelsey’s fast-paced offense.
Shelstad was set to visit Arizona on April 14, according to Dushawn London of 247Sports. But on Thursday, Tipton reported that trip was no longer scheduled.
Riley followed in his father’s footsteps by committing to San Francisco out of high school and proceeded to start all 65 games of his first two seasons in the collegiate ranks. Now, the 6-6 native of Watts, California, is looking to make the jump to a high-major program.
Riley is coming off a 2025-26 campaign that earned him a spot on the All-West Coast Conference second team. He averaged 12.2 points on 47.2% shooting (36.8% from 3), 4.8 rebounds, 1.2 assists and a steal across 31.8 minutes per game. Per Torvik, his 9.4% turnover rate was the second lowest among WCC players who accounted for 40% or more of their team’s minutes and posted a usage rate of 17% or higher.
Riley had a 57.8% effective field-goal percentage on six shot attempts either at the rim or beyond the arc per game as a sophomore, according to CBB Analytics. He’s also adept at crashing the glass for his height, with offensive (4.9%) and defensive (12.5%) rebounding rates ranking among the 72nd percentile or better throughout D-I. But only time will tell if that translates at the power conference level.
According to a report from College Basketball Content on X, Riley is scheduled to visit Oregon on Friday before stopping by Louisville on Sunday.
Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at [email protected] and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.
