Pat Kelsey is Louisville's top candidate -- for now

Louisville is still looking for a new head men’s basketball search. The process quickly got off the rails for Director of Athletics Josh Heird after Scott Drew turned down an offer quickly led to Florida Atlantic head coach Dusty May picking Michigan over UofL. Things quickly unraveled this week.

Indiana State head coach Josh Schertz was seen as the next top candidate but the former Division II head coach reportedly signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Saint Louis to become their next head coach once the NIT run ends for the Sycamores. Schertz did that after hearing that May accepted the Louisville. That forced Heird to move to option D this week.

New Mexico head coach Richard Pitino emerged as a top candidate on Tuesday but pulled his name out of the search on Wednesday. For the fifth time during this process, Louisville has a top candidate. The Cardinals are zoning in on Charleston head coach Pat Kelsey, but there is still a long way to go.

BREAKING: Louisville is closing in on a deal with College of Charleston’s Pat Kelsey that would make Kelsey the Cardinals head coach, sources told @thefieldof68.

Barring a last-minute breakdown in negotiations, a deal is expected between the two sides.

Kelsey is a Midwest guy…

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 27, 2024

Here is what I have on Louisville, per sources. Pat Kelsey has not agreed to become U of L’s next coach, nor has he signed any papers, nor has there been a verbal promise to Kelsey to be the next coach. Could get there fast, but as of this moment, U of L/Kelsey do not have a deal

— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) March 27, 2024

Kelsey, 48, has been a college head coach for 12 seasons leading Winthrop and Charleston to a combined four NCAA Tournament appearances. The Cincinnati native owns a 261-122 (.681) career record with six regular-season conference titles and five conference tournament titles. Winthrop was an automatic qualifier in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic forced a postseason cancellation. Kelsey also agreed to terms with UMass in 2017 to become the program’s next head coach only to back out of the agreement two days later.

An argument can be made that Kelsey is a good fourth option for Louisville basketball, but the fit could be odd due to coaching tree. Former Louisville head coach Chris Mack and assistant Dino Gaudio have a close working relationship with Kelsey.

Pat Kelsey was an assistant coach at Wake Forest under Skip Prosser and Dino Gaudio from 2004-09. Chris Mack was an assistant coach at Wake Forest under Prosser from 2001-04. After the 2009 season, Kelsey left Winston-Salem to become Mack’s associate head coach at Xavier for two seasons before leaving for Winthrop. Gaudio eventually became an assistant coach under Mack at Louisville.

That did not end well.

Gaudio was charged with extortion and eventually accepted a plea deal to avoid federal prison. There was an incident in March 2021 between Gaudio and Mack. When Gaudio’s contract was not renewed, the former Wake Forest head coach threatened to expose numerous recruiting and on-campus violations by the coaching staff to the media if he wasn’t paid 17 months of salary. He accused the Louisville program of violating NCAA rules in its production of recruiting videos for prospective student-athletes, along with the team’s use of graduate assistants in practices (a rule that is not being enforced this offseason by the NCAA). Mack privately recorded that conversation.

Mack was suspended six games by the University of Louisville for the incident. The following January, Mack and Louisville decided to part ways in the middle of year four during his tenure. Two years after the separation, UofL is seemingly going back to that Wake Forest and Xavier pipeline after the last hire from that tree ended in disaster and caused this proud program to spiral more out of control.

There is one thing we all know — University-6 is not boring.