With Pat Kelsey's emphasis on shooting, expect Louisville basketball to rain 3s

Louisville men's basketball head coach Pat Kelsey has described his offensive philosophy as being rooted in randomness.

His up-tempo teams have had a calling card over the years, however; and it's very much by design.

They've liked to shoot 3-pointers — a lot of them. That's not going to change anytime soon.

In a video the Cardinals posted to X, formerly Twitter, on July 6, assistant coach Michael Cassidy — who serves as Kelsey's offensive coordinator — identified three "key priorities" for the team heading into its two-game exhibition tour of the Bahamas at the end of the month. They were skill development, system development and shooting.

"My mentor used to say to me, 'Shooting makes up for a multitude of sins,'" Kelsey told Bob Valvano last month, during an appearance on WHBE 680 AM. "It's something we value in recruiting. It's something that we cultivate and develop every single day."

Prioritizing 3s is hardly an original concept these days. Kelsey acknowledged as much during the aforementioned interview with Valvano.

Every team that reached the Elite Eight of last season's NCAA Tournament, for example, attempted 20 or more shots from beyond the arc per game and had a conversion rate of 34% or better.

U of L was, for many reasons, as far as a program can get from March Madness during former coach Kenny Payne's 12-52 tenure. Two of its most glaring issues during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons were its lack of shooters and its inability to guard opposing marksmen.

The Cardinals went 375 for 1,179 (31.8%) from 3 during the Payne era; which equates to 5.9 makes on 18.4 attempts per game. Opponents went 535 for 1,478 (36.2%); which equates to 8.4 makes on 23.1 attempts per game.

Kelsey's final two Charleston teams were even more trigger happy, going 716 for 2,123 (33.7%) between 2022-24; which equates to 10.2 makes on 30.3 attempts per game. Both squads would have broken Louisville's single-season record for 3-point tries (906) en route to back-to-back conference titles and trips to the NCAA Tournament.

The 2023-24 Cougars were one of only eight teams to make 350 or more 3s (368) and one of only six to attempt 1,000 or more (1,072). Only two teams, BYU and North Florida, averaged more shots from beyond the arc per game than their 30.6. Their 34.3% clip ranked 160th in the country but would have been the best at U of L since 2019-20.

The Cards' single-season record for made 3s is 361. It, like the attempts record, was set during the 2004-05 campaign; which saw Taquan Dean — now Taqwa Pinero — knock down a record 122 on his own.

There's a player following Kelsey from Charleston, senior guard Reyne Smith, who fell 10 shy of that high-water mark with 112 in 2023-24. The 6-foot-2 Australian finished the season 43rd in the country with a 39.4% clip from deep, led the Cougars in scoring (12.8 points per game) and twice broke the program's single-game 3s record.

Kelsey considers Smith to be "one of the best shooters in the world at his age" heading into his final season of eligibility. No one on Louisville's 2024-25 roster is more prolific; but efficiency is a common theme.

Of the Cards' 12 additions through the NCAA transfer portal, nine have posted a season of 35% or better from 3 during their collegiate careers. The group is composed of Chucky Hepburn, the projected starting point guard, all the way down the lineup to floor-stretching bigs such as Kasean Pryor and Noah Waterman.

That's what makes the Cards so dangerous in the eyes of Evan Miyakawa, the advanced analytics guru behind EvanMiya.com.

"You're almost guaranteeing that any lineup you throw out there is going to have at least three guys who are major 3-point shooting threats," Miyakawa told The Courier Journal in May. "If you combine that with a guy like Smith, who is normally, probably, going to require constant defender attention, that means you're just going to leave other guys open. That's going to be really hard to handle."

Reach Louisville men's basketball reporter Brooks Holton at [email protected] and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville basketball: Expect plenty of 3s from Pat Kelsey's Cardinals