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 Rick Pitino’s Louisville Cardinals had a great 2008-09 NCAA basketball season finishing the year 31-6 (16-2), winning the Big East regular season and post season tournament championships, and progressing to the Elite Eight ultimately losing to Michigan State. Although stars Earl Clark and Terrence Williams are gone for 2009-10, the Cardinals are returning a strong core of experienced players from last season’s team while bringing in one of the top 15 2009 NCAA recruiting basketball classes in the country. Although none of the recruits are forecast to be starters next year, all four of the recruits in this year’s class for Louisville have the potential to play a significant number of minutes on next season’s team and potentially crack the starting lineup by the end of the season.

 

Louisville Cardinals 2009 Men’s Basketball Recruiting Class

#1 Louisville Basketball Prospect – PG – Peyton Siva

Rivals.com – #39

Scout.com- #35
Ht: 5′11″
Wt: 180 lbs 
#2 Louisville Basketball Prospect – PF – Rakeem Buckles

Rivals.com - #36
Sout.com – #18
Ht: 6′8″

Wt: 205 lbs

 #3 Louisville Basketball Prospect – SG – Mike Marra

Rivals.com - 3 Star
Sout.com – #42
Ht: 6′5

Wt: 190 lbs

#4 Louisville Basketball Prospect – PF – Stephan Van Treese

Rivals.com - 3 Star
Sout.com – #37
Ht: 6′9″

Wt: 220 lbs

2009-10 Projected Starting Lineup for the Louisville Cardinals

Samardo Samuels is the returning player to the Louisville Cardinal lineup who had the highest PPG average from last season at 11.8 ppg.  Edgar Sosa is back to run the point, and as of right now none of the freshmen is forecast to crack the starting lineup by the sart of the season. Its very likely that one or more of the prospects will end up in the starting lineup by Big East tournament time. Rick Pitino will have the Cardinals back in the top 10 rankings by the end of the year, and they should make a decent run at the NCAA title again this coming 2009-10 season. A lot is going to be put on Jerry Smith and Reginald Delk’s shoulders at the start of the season to help make up for the loss of Earl Clark and T-Will  though. Cardinals fans may just have to be patient while Coach Pitino gets the team chemistry down in the early part of the season before entering Big East play.

PG: Edgar Sosa

SG: Jerry Smith

SF: Reginald Delk
PF: Samardo Samuels

C:  Terrence Jennings