Louisville basketball picked 2nd in ACC preseason poll before Year 2 under Pat Kelsey

Louisville basketball put the ACC on notice during Year 1 of the Pat Kelsey era. As Terrence Edwards Jr. proclaimed while leaving the court after a win at Pittsburgh back in January, “This ain’t the same Ville.”

No, after going from back-to-back last-place finishes in the ACC under Kenny Payne to earning a spot in the conference tournament’s championship game during Kelsey’s first go-around, the Cardinals enter the 2025-26 season as one of the league’s top contenders.

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A select panel of media members voted U of L to finish Year 2 of Kelsey’s tenure second out of 18 teams.

Duke, for a third straight preseason, was crowned the favorite to win the ACC — garnering 34 first-place votes. Louisville has closed the gap, however, with 15 voters favoring the Cards over the Blue Devils for the top spot.

U of L was picked to finish ninth in the 2024-25 preseason ACC poll. It proceeded to rattle off a program-record 18 wins in conference play — more than triple its total from Payne’s two years at the helm — to finish one game behind regular-season champion Duke, earning Kelsey the league’s Coach of the Year award.

The Cards fell 73-62 to the Blue Devils in the program’s first appearance in the ACC Tournament’s championship game since joining the conference ahead of the 2014-15 campaign. The season ended with an 89-75 loss to Creighton in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

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Kelsey returns five members of his inaugural Louisville roster for 2025-26: J’Vonne Hadley, Aly Khalifa, Kasean Pryor, Kobe Rodgers and Khani Rooths. The Cards’ seven newcomers include three additions from the NCAA transfer portal, Ryan Conwell, Isaac McKneely and Adrian Wooley; international big men Sananda Fru and Evangelos Zougris; and freshmen Mikel Brown Jr. and Mouhamed Camara.

“I can’t tell you how excited I am to coach this team this year,” Kelsey said last week at ACC Tipoff. “People talk a lot about the revival team last year. That’s last year; this group has a chance to be special — a special makeup of young men both from an experience standpoint, a talent standpoint and a leadership standpoint.”

Brown and Conwell landed spots on the preseason All-ACC first team Tuesday. The former was the top point guard recruit in the Class of 2025 on the 247Sports Composite and earned McDonald’s All-American status coming out of DME Academy in Daytona Beach, Florida. The latter averaged 16.5 points on 45% shooting (41.3% from 3-point range) as a junior at Xavier en route to third-team All-Big East honors.

U of L enters Year 2 under Kelsey ranked 11th in the preseason AP Top 25. Duke (No. 6) and North Carolina (No. 25) were the only other ACC representatives in the poll. N.C. State and Virginia also received votes.

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We’ll find out quickly what Kelsey’s 2025-26 roster is made of. The Cards will play Kansas in an Oct. 24 exhibition at the KFC Yum! Center, and their nonconference schedule features seven teams in the top 75 of BartTorvik.com‘s preseason projections: Arkansas (16), Baylor (34), Cincinnati (32), Indiana (42), Kentucky (14), Memphis (73) and Tennessee (13).

ACC play begins in late December with a trip to the West Coast for games at California and Stanford. Louisville will get two shots at Duke during the regular season: Jan. 6 at the Yum! Center and Jan. 26 at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Here’s a look at the complete ACC projected order of finish and the players who received preseason accolades:

ACC basketball 2025-26 preseason poll: Louisville picked second

Note: First-place votes are in parentheses.

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ACC basketball 2025-26 preseason awards: Louisville’s Mikel Brown Jr., Ryan Conwell earn first-team honors

• Preseason Player of the Year: Darrion Williams (N.C. State)

• Preseason Freshman of the Year: Cameron Boozer (Duke)

• Preseason All-ACC: Cameron Boozer (Duke), Markus Burton (Notre Dame), Darrion Williams (N.C. State), Mikel Brown Jr. (Louisville), Ryan Conwell (Louisville)

• Preseason All-ACC (second team): Isaiah Evans (Duke), Boopie Miller (SMU), J.J. Starling (Syracuse), Baye Ndongo (Georgia Tech), Caleb Wilson (North Carolina)

Reach Louisville men’s basketball reporter Brooks Holton at bholton@gannett.com and follow him on X at @brooksHolton.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Louisville basketball second in ACC predicted order of finish