Louisville is the next team up.
Louisville's season concluded with a loss in the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament by 20+ points to TCU. Louisville was a 7 - seed coming in so I don't think much more was expected from a very up-and-down year. They entered the season with a #17 ranking and ended it with a #26 ranking which was about right. Jeff Walz has been an ACC HC longer than any other person in the conference having finished his 18th season. He's not only the longest tenured in the conference he's also the best with a .769 win pct. Like so many other coaches I've discussed to this point the coming season will prove to be a challenge just to maintain their 5th place finish in the ACC and make an appearance in the NCAA tournament.
What was lost: 4 out of the 5 starters - one to the portal and the other 3 to graduation. J.Curry (14.4 ppg), O. Cochran (10.4ppg), and J.Williams (6.7ppg) are gone and N.Harris (8.6ppg) opted to play her senior year at NC. Reserves M.Russell (4.4ppg) and E. Imafidon (to Providence) are also gone as is sophomore to be (#88 ranked freshman) I. Arenas to KSU.
Remaining: The only returning starter is #24 ranked freshman (now soph) T. Roberts (5'10" G 12.8ppg - 2nd on the team), #19 ranked freshman (now soph) I. Berry (5'10" G 4.9ppg), #23 ranked M. Randolph (so. 6'0" F 3.6ppg), E. Istanbulloglu from Turkey (jr. 6'3" F 4.9ppg), I. Juffermans from Australia (so. 6'4" F 2.3ppg), A. Hardy (so. 6'3" F 0.9ppg) and returning from injury are R. Bender (so. 5'10" G) and R. Graves (rs fr. 5'6" G).
Transfers coming in: S. Jones (jr. 6'0" G/F 10.7 ppg from Arizona), R. Scott (sr. 5'10" G 4.8ppg from Oklahoma), and L. Ziegler (sr. 6'2" F 17.5ppg from St. Joseph's).
Incoming freshmen: #78 G. Mbugua (6'4" F), Y. Putra (from Ukraine 6'3" F) and P. Bradley (5'9" G)
Walz has his work cut out for him. He has put together transfers to make a team in the past so that experience will certainly be beneficial for this coming year. Experienced Guards Curry and Williams are gone so he'll need some mixture of transfers Jones and Scott along with returnees Berry, Randolph, Bender, and Graves to fill in alongside Roberts. Aside from Roberts there are certainly a lot of questions surrounding how well these players came come together to form a cohesive unit that can put enough points on the board.
As for the front court I'm sure he's hoping Ziegler (originally from Denmark) can help with the scoring inside and be a replacement for the departing Harris and incoming freshman Mbugua along with Istanbulloglu, Juffermans, and Hardy to do their best to help out with the loss of Cochran. Ziegler had 20 dbl-dbls last season (yes 20) and that was no outlier either as she has been nearly that good for several years. The asterisk is that came at St. Joseph's so can it translate at this level ? As I have stated before, many of the ACC teams this year will be using a 2 - post player starting 5 and matching up against strong experienced duos every game or two can be a real challenge. Istanbulloglu had herself a pretty good Eurobasket tournament this summer both in points and rebounds. But again, Eurobasket dominance is not the same as playing in a major conference in the NCAA . Still, Walz is a smart experienced coach and I'm not going to sell that short.
I believe he can put it together enough to finish in the top 5 through 8 teams in the ACC but with last year's freshman class and the addition of Mbugua this year I see the foundation for the future with the portal acting as a stop gap measure for this year and possibly next. ND has only one returning starter also, NC and NC State both have only 2, and many of the ACC teams that finished behind Louisville last year are in a similar situation. So once you get past the top 3 or 4 teams there's going to be a real battle for spots 5 through 10. It's going to be interesting to see who wins those battles but Walz has shown over the years that he has the inside track.
