The Louisville Cardinals are expected to sign Tennessee’s first transfer, as we approach the halfway point of the spring transfer portal session.
A few players from Tennessee basketball have left the team this spring due to transfers. Rick Barnes and the Vols have less than two weeks to assemble the squad they will play for in the upcoming season before the gateway window closes on April 30.
On April 4, five days after Tennessee’s Elite Eight loss to Purdue, freshman combo guard Freddie Dilione V made his transfer portal debut. After redshirting his first season, he spent two seasons on Rocky Top but did not get the amount of playing time he had anticipated this past season.
Dilione is rated as a four-star transfer prospect by 247Sports and the On3 transfer portal. He would be a fantastic guard to add to any club that wants to rebuild and find someone who can start in the fall.
If On3 is right about where Dilione will commit, then he could be headed exactly toward the latter scenario. Jamie Shaw of On3, the platform’s national recruiting analyst, has projected that Dilione will sign with the Cardinals in Louisville.
After two terrible seasons under Kenny Payne, who finished 12-52 in his two years as the Cardinals head coach, Louisville is seeking to turn things around. As part of his plan to rebuild the Louisville Cardinals roster, new Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey may choose to bring in Dilione as a transfer.
Dilione, a transfer from Tennessee, is “in the mist of evolving from a volume scoring wing into a more legitimate big guard,” according to Adam Finkelstein of 247Sports. “He has the size and strength to play and eventually defend all three perimeter positions at 6-foot-5. His frame is almost fully mature and he is naturally strong.”
“He usually plays his best individual offense in the open floor or coming off ball screens, when he can use his strength and stature to create mismatches and make plays. Although he doesn’t have any obvious technical flaws in his shot, he has a history of being a streaky shooter, sometimes hunting for open opportunities and settling for contested ones.”
It’s not a foregone conclusion that Shaw would wind up in Louisville—his confidence level in the prediction is 60 out of 100—but it would be a significant pickup for Kelsey just a few weeks after she was hired. Dilione might be a weapon for Louisville the next season because of his strong offensive upside.
