Louisville basketball roster look for Year 2 under Pat Kelsey after transfer portal window

The NCAA transfer portal has closed, and Pat Kelsey‘s Louisville basketball roster for the 2025-26 season is almost complete.

Between the portal opening March 24 and it closing April 22, the Cardinals had two scholarship players enter (junior guard Koren Johnson and sophomore forward James Scott) and brought in three from other Division I programs.

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Factor in two other newcomers and the five players from the 2024-25 roster who decided to stay put, and U of L had 10 of its 13 scholarship spots accounted for Year 2 of Kelsey’s tenure as of April 23.

There are still moves to be made, but the group Louisville has assembled to this point is garnering high praise.

Coming off a 27-8 finish to 2024-25, the Cards appeared in the top five of six way-too-early top 25s for 2025-26 that were released after Florida beat Houston in the national championship.

Here’s a rundown of where the roster stood as of April 23:

Mikel Brown Jr.

Mikel Brown Jr. is the 29th McDonald’s All-American in Louisville history. The 6-foot-3 product of DME Academy in Daytona Beach, Florida, ranks among the top 10 players in the 2025 cycle, regardless of position, on the 247Sports Composite. In February, ESPN had the incoming freshman point guard as a lottery pick in its first 2026 NBA Draft projections.

Ryan Conwell 

Louisville is Ryan Conwell‘s fourth school in as many years. The 6-4 rising senior guard from Indianapolis was Xavier’s second-best scorer in 2024-25, averaging 16.5 points on 45% shooting en route to third-team All-Big East honors. He led the Musketeers in made 3s (99) and attempts (240), good for a 41.3% clip, and also tallied 2.7 rebounds, 2.5 assists against 1.6 turnovers and 1.3 steals across 33 minutes per game.

Sananda Fru

Sananda Fru, a 6-11, 245-pound destroyer of rims, has been playing in Germany’s top-flight Basketball Bundesliga since 2021; this year, he’s averaging 12.1 points on 66% shooting with 5.8 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per appearance. Fru committed to Louisville in February but, at the time of publication, had not yet been announced as a signee. A source close to the program told The Courier Journal that the 21-year-old “should” have two years of collegiate eligibility upon arriving in the 502.

J’Vonne Hadley

Having been granted an additional year of eligibility due to time spent in the junior college ranks, J’Vonne Hadley announced his return for another go-around on April 8. The Minnesota native was the consummate glue guy for Louisville in 2024-25, starting all 35 games, leading the team in rebounding (7.3), finishing fourth in scoring (12.2) and punching above his 6-6 frame defensively.

Aly Khalifa

Regarded as one of the best passing big men in the country, Aly Khalifa is the first of two Louisville seniors who redshirted in 2024-25 while recovering from injuries they suffered at their previous stops. The 6-11 Egyptian, who joined Louisville from BYU, underwent surgery to repair a hole in the cartilage of his left knee and proceeded to drop 50 pounds with the help of strength coach Eli Foy. He led the Big 12 — and all DI bigs — with a 3.6 assist-turnover ratio as a junior with the Cougars to go along with 5.7 points and 3.7 rebounds across 19.4 minutes per game.

Isaac McKneely

Virginia transfer Isaac McKneely was the only ACC player more accurate than Louisville’s Reyne Smith from 3-point range in 2024-25 with a clip of 42.1% (101 for 240). The 6-4 guard led the Cavaliers in scoring with 14.4 points on 43.9% shooting to go along with 2.9 assists and 2.7 rebounds across 34 minutes per contest as a junior. For his career, he’s 233 for 552 (42.2%) from beyond the arc.

Kasean Pryor

Kasean Pryor waited until the day the portal closed to announce his return to Louisville for the 2025-26 season after a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee cut short his 2024-25 campaign in late November. Across seven appearances, the 6-10 forward averaged 12 points on 36.8% shooting (5 for 33 from 3) with 6.1 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.1 blocks across 23 minutes per.

Kobe Rodgers

Kobe Rodgers joined Khalifa in redshirting this season after suffering a knee injury during Charleston’s first-round loss in the 2024 NCAA Tournament. That ended the 6-3 guard from Cincinnati’s first campaign with Kelsey; and he finished it averaging 9.7 points on 50% shooting, 4.6 rebounds, 1.2 steals — with a 1.4 assist-turnover ratio. Before signing with the Cougars, Rodgers was part of a Nova Southeastern team that went 36-0 and won the DII national championship.

Khani Rooths

The lone freshman on Louisville’s 2024-25 roster, Khani Rooths, showed flashes of potential throughout the season. The 6-8 forward averaged only 3.3 points on 39.3% shooting and three rebounds across 13.4 minutes per game but threw down some of the most electrifying dunks of the campaign. “The thing that you can 100,000% count on,” Kelsey said of the Washington, D.C., native, “is that kid’s going to empty the tank every time he takes the floor.”

Adrian Wooley

Kennesaw State transfer Adrian Wooley, the reigning Conference USA Freshman of the Year, had one of the most productive 2024-25 campaigns of any newcomer across the country. The 6-5 guard from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, finished the regular season ranked fifth among first-year DI players in scoring (18.5), sixth in field-goal percentage (51.3%) and 13th in assists (3.5) — with 5.2 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game to boot.

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

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville basketball transfer portal: Where Pat Kelsey roster stands