Louisville is reportedly targeting Pat Kelsey to be its next head coach, and per Matt Norlander, it’s because Josh Schertz told them no. The circumstances of this no are of interest. Did Schertz not want the job? Did Schertz want another week, to finish his season at Indiana State? Given Louisville’s waited this long, you’d think they wouldn’t mind another seven days, but Louisville’s process has been a little hard to read.
Also of interest is whether Pat Kelsey takes the job. The man famously took then un-took the UMass job seven years ago, and the language so far has been very clear across reports. Louisville is “targeting” Kelsey. Louisville has not secured his services.
If Kelsey is the coach at Louisville, it’s probably a good enough fit. Kelsey was successful at Winthrop and again at the College of Charleston. He’s 48 years old with twelve years of head coaching experience. Many are willing to say good things about him as a person, and his high-energy approach can mesh well with Louisville’s scrappy persona if Louisville fans are willing to be Louisville and not insist upon imitations of Kentucky.
I think Rick Pitino might have led Louisville astray a little in what it thinks of itself. Louisville is not a genteel school, one destined to be coached by the college basketball aristocracy. Even Denny Crum, laid-back though he was, came to mean so much to Louisville because he embraced Louisville as the underdog it was when he took over. Louisville people are not naturally any more rabid than Kentucky people, but Louisville—even with three national championships in men’s basketball—does not have the storied success of its biggest rival, nor does its history match that of regional counterpart Indiana or conference foes UNC and Duke. Louisville is naturally scrappy. Scrappy is a word that describes Pat Kelsey.
The Louisville ecosystem seems split over this hire because it’s not Scott Drew. It wasn’t going to be Scott Drew, though. Louisville is not the kind of job that can persuade Scott Drew to abdicate his throne at Baylor. A loud share of Louisville fans want it to be that job, but that isn’t what it is. Pat Kelsey is realistic. Pat Kelsey fits.
I do believe Kelsey will be a character at Louisville. He’ll be a little corny at times, and the frantic pace of his teams might lead to similar frustration to what we see directed towards his fellow stylistic iconoclast, Nate Oats. Oats and Kelsey coach differently, but they’re both unconventional, and in a way that so far in college basketball history has been accompanied by a hard ceiling. Can Pat Kelsey win a national championship at Louisville? I don’t really think so, unless Kelsey evolves to be broader than just energy and pace and hoisting threes. But Pat Kelsey should be able to have enough success to stabilize a program in freefall and get that program competitive within the ACC again. As Clemson’s showing, being competitive in the ACC is a good place to start.
Overall? It seems pretty clear Louisville wasn’t getting anyone better. That, in itself, says a lot.
Is Saint Louis a Good Job?
I brought up Schertz right away above because he’s still widely expected to land at Saint Louis, and the fact he’d turn Louisville down for Saint Louis is a fascinating proposition. Could Saint Louis match Louisville financially? Maybe. Does Saint Louis have the NIL resources promised at Louisville? I’d really doubt it.
There are two possible explanations here. The first is that Schertz was spooked by Louisville, that he saw a muddled program with some fans who didn’t want him and said, “No thanks.” Saint Louis will come with reasonable expectations. Saint Louis won’t yank its basketball program around to follow its football team. Saint Louis would probably be more accepting of a lot of Indiana State transfers than Louisville would be. If Schertz is competitive in the A-10 in Year 2, following his Indiana State pattern, Schertz will be a roaring success for the Billikens.
And yet.
Louisville might have been on the table.
Is he taking the Saint Louis gig?
I still think he is, but the second explanation is probably terrifying for SLU fans. That explanation is that Schertz just watched Dusty May lock himself into the Michigan job, knows Indiana and other big jobs will probably open up in the next two years, knows he has a great roster at Indiana State with important youth, and knows he loves and is loved by Terre Haute. What if Schertz doesn’t leave Indiana State? No, the majority of Sycamore history isn’t what Saint Louis has, but the Missouri Valley isn’t far behind the A-10 in quality, and Darian DeVries just left Drake, clearing Indiana State’s 2025 path that much more. If Schertz returned and the roster didn’t lose any key transfers, Indiana State would likely be a top-20 preseason team. Schertz might not be done in Terre Haute.
The thing that, to me, separates Schertz from Kelsey is that Schertz doesn’t show an inclination towards gimmickry, nor does he show an inclination towards hard-headedness. He adapts. He adjusts. His team can play multiple styles. He is not a character. It’s easy to project a ceiling on Pat Kelsey. It’s hard to know where that stands with Josh Schertz.
The Rest
Two things:
- I can’t believe the Jordan Montgomery deal is so small. This seems like a mistake by a lot of teams, but it also points towards a mistake by Scott Boras. Sonny Gray getting a better deal than Montgomery is justifiable—Montgomery’s performance was inconsistent last year, even if the highest highs were spectacular, and both is at an age at which performance declines. Gray might be older, but he started from a higher place on that curve. Eduardo Rodríguez, though? By dollars per WAR, it would be pretty shocking if Rodríguez’s deal ended up being more advantageous than Montgomery’s, even accounting for injury. It seems like Boras waited too long, and teams felt good enough with what they had to not bother with the Boras hassle.
- Charlie Baker called today for more states to ban prop bets on individual player performances in college sports. It makes a lot of sense as a way to deter scandal. There are so many more college athletes than pro athletes, and college sports governance is so decentralized. College sports is a hard world in which to enforce obvious rules, and even in the easy world of the NBA, an obvious rule may have recently been broken by someone close to Jontay Porter. Still, I’m personally wary of my own reaction here, because I’ve personally never really been interested by player prop bets. To be honest, they overwhelm me. Even the spread is sometimes a lot. I like moneylines and futures. Conveniently for my regulatory appetite, those are harder to rig.
Update #1: Reports now hold Kelsey is going to accept the Louisville role.
Update #2: I should have clarified that Baker is framing this as an attempt to curb harassment of these athletes from losers who lost their bets. I believe that and support it as a motivation, but I think avoiding betting scandals should probably be a higher priority. Harassment should be tackled from a lot of angles.
