Mangok Mathiang Now Enrolled At Louisville; Will Likely Redshirt In 2012-13

Mangok Mathiang, a late commitment for Rick Pitino’s 2012 recruiting class has reportedly been cleared academically and will start classes at the University of Louisville on Monday. Mangok (pronounced Mango), verbally committed to Louisville out of nowhere on August 1^st. The University of Louisville had not commented on Mathiang’s situation because he was still going through the process of being cleared.

Mathiang, a 6-foot-10 205-pound post player spent last season at IMG Academy in Bradenton, FL. On August 1^st, the official Twitter account for IMG Academy tweeted out a picture of Mathiang signing paper work that was believed to be a letter of intent.

Although he has been academically cleared, Rick Pitino tells Eric Crawford of WDRB that Mathiang  still has one more step in the eligibility process to complete, but will be with the team when Pitino holds a meeting Sunday afternoon to discuss about academic matters.

Mathiang was originally a member of the 2012 class, but reclassified to 2013 after enrolling at Brehm Prep in Carbondale, IL., for the 2010-11 season. He spent last season at IMG Academy. Although Mathiang attended prep school, he didn’t play a lot of AAU basketball over the past two years which explains why there isn’t a whole lot of information on him throughout the internet.

Georgia, Kansas State, Mississippi State and Auburn offered him a scholarship to join their 2013 class. Louisville is the only school to my knowledge that offered him to join their team in 2012. Clemson, Texas A&M, Auburn, Michigan, Southern Illinois and Florida State didn’t offer, but we’re recently showing interest.

Due to the fact that Mangok is still waiting to become eligible and is widely considered as a project for the Cardinals, I think it’s likely that he redshirts in 2012-13. Mathiang will get more out of a redshirt season with Louisville, where he will be able to practice with the team, rather than spending another year in prep school. Mangok will greatly benefit from going against Gorgui Dieng, Chane Behanan and Montrezl Harrell in practice every day.