Louisville basketball, Pat Kelsey land 5-star point guard to begin 2025 recruiting class

Pat Kelsey has finally landed a class of 2025 commitment for the Louisville men’s basketball program.

And it’s a five-star point guard who has pledged to play for the Cardinals next season.

On Wednesday night — during the first half of Louisville’s 83-70 home win over North Carolina — Mikel Brown Jr. committed to the Cardinals. The 6-foot-3, 172-pound recruit is the 247Sports Composite’s No. 10 national recruit in the 2025 class.

Brown’s mid-game commitment was punctuated by an on-court appearance at the KFC Yum! Center in front of an enthusiastic Louisville crowd. It was reported that Brown signed his paperwork to play for Louisville during the November early signing period.

While Brown didn’t pick Louisville from a set list of finalist schools, he also had scholarship offers from the likes of Alabama, Central Florida, Kentucky and Ole Miss, among other programs.

During his college recruitment, Brown took visits to Alabama, Arizona, Central Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisville, Maryland, Ole Miss and Providence. He visited the Cardinals in September, and Brown made a return trip to Louisville in December for U of L’s ACC opener against Duke.

Brown’s visit to UK also came in September, and it coincided with an official visit from five-star class of 2025 center Chris Cenac Jr., who is now committed to Houston.

In landing Brown, Louisville has put itself back on the national college basketball recruiting map.

Victories in any form — whether on the court, in traditional high school recruiting or in transfer portal recruiting — were hard to come by for the Cardinals during the disastrous two-season Kenny Payne coaching era.

While U of L inked a top-10 ranked high school recruiting class in 2023, the two best players from this group were non-factors for the Cardinals. Small forward Trentyn Flowers abruptly left Louisville before the 2023-24 season to turn professional in Australia, and center Dennis Evans only played sparingly for the Cards last season before the school announced he wasn’t medically cleared to play.

(Flowers went undrafted in the 2024 NBA draft before signing with the Los Angeles Clippers. Evans is now at Grand Canyon, but hasn’t played this season.)

Kelsey, a Cincinnati native who previously coached at Winthrop and Charleston, is turning things around in the Derby City.

Louisville owns a 9-5 overall record. The Cardinals have already surpassed their win total from a season ago. U of L is 2-1 in ACC play this season.

Recruiting-wise, Brown — who plays at DME Academy in Florida and was previously part of the Overtime Elite program in Atlanta — is the first class of 2025 player to commit to play for Kelsey at U of L.

Kelsey’s first Louisville team this season includes 12 newcomers who arrived via the transfer portal but only one freshman addition: Forward Khani Rooths, a former Michigan commit. Rooths was a four-star prospect in the 2024 recruiting class.

Brown projects to be one of the highest-ranked high school recruits to commit to the U of L program. Last year, Brown signed an endorsement deal with Adidas, which is Louisville’s apparel partner.

2025 recruiting outlook for Louisville basketball

With Brown now in the fold for the Cardinals, it will be interesting to see where Louisville goes from here when it comes to recruiting additional high school prospects in the 2025 recruiting class.

The Cardinals have two other scholarship offers out to 2025 recruits who are yet to commit to a school. Those players are five-star combo guard Brayden Burries and five-star power forward Nate Ament, who took an official visit to Louisville in October.

Burries and Ament both also have UK scholarship offers.

Kelsey built the bulk of his first Louisville basketball team via the transfer portal, and plenty of roster turnover due to expiring college eligibility will occur next offseason.

Entering the 2024-25 season, only five players on this season’s Louisville roster were set to have eligibility remaining for the 2025-26 season. That number might grow, though, following a season-ending torn ACL suffered by senior forward Kasean Pryor in November.

Kelsey will also have some new roster space to use: Starting next season, NCAA Division I men’s basketball programs will be able to have up to 15 scholarship players.

Most five-star recruits in 2025 class have made college choices

With Brown’s recruitment now complete, only a handful of top-tier college basketball recruits in the 2025 class are yet to commit to a school.

According to the 247Sports Composite, only four five-star recruits are yet to announce their college plans. Two of these players are the aforementioned Ament (the No. 4 overall player in the class) and Burries (the No. 11 overall player in the class).

The other two still-uncommitted five-star recruits in the 2025 class are power forwards Caleb Wilson and Koa Peat.

Wilson, the No. 5 overall prospect in the class, is working with a top-five list that includes Central Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio State and Tennessee. UK is considered the favorite to land Wilson, who is expected to announce his final two schools before committing.

The Wildcats already have a trio of signees in the 2025 class: guards Jasper Johnson and Acaden Lewis and center Malachi Moreno.

Peat, the No. 7 overall prospect in the class, is down to five schools in his recruitment. Peat will choose from Arizona, Arizona State, Baylor, Houston and Texas.

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