Could Louisville Add Another Player For The 2012-13 Season?

Coach Rick Pitino joined Drew Deener this morning on the Early Birds radio program on WKRD 790. The main topic of discussion was the situation with 2012 signee Terry Rozier, who will now attend Hargrave Military Academy in Chatsworth, VA.

Pitino confirmed that Rozier will in fact join the team in 2013-14 after a year of prep school. It was assumed that Rozier would now join Louisville’s 2013 recruiting class, but yesterday’s press release didn’t mention those exact words.

In regards to how not having Rozier would affect Louisville in 2012-13, Pitino says he would primarily use Luke Hancock and Kevin Ware as back-up point guards for Peyton Siva. He mentioned that he doesn’t want to play Russ Smith at the point guard position very much, because he wants to try and limit turnovers.

The most newsworthy information from the radio interview this morning was what Pitino had to say in regards to what would happen with the available scholarship. “We’re still recruiting right now for 2012,” Pitino said. “We’ve got another player in mind. It could be a transfer or possibly someone who could come in and play as a freshman. We should know within the next ten days.”

I’m stumped on which player Pitino is referring to when he says it could be someone who could come in and play as a freshman in 2012. As far as whom it would be that comes in as a transfer, I assume Pitino is referring to JUCO All American Chris Jones. The 5-foot-10 point guard was originally a member of the 2011 class and was considered to be a top 50 overall player. He failed to qualify and spent last season at Northwest Florida State Junior College. According to Scout.com, Jones picked up a scholarship offer from Louisville earlier this week. It was assumed that Jones would spend one more year at the JUCO level and then transfer to a division one program in 2013. However, if he has options to play right away, I think that is something he would consider.