Cleveland State transfer Trey Lewis will play his senior season for Rick Pitino at Louisville, news which instantly provides a massive scoring boost to the Cardinal backcourt for 2015-16. The Plain Dealer's Elton Alexander first reported the news on Monday.
Lewis will formally announce his decision at a press conference on Tuesday.
Lewis, a native of Garfield Heights, OH, spent his freshman season at Penn State, where he began the year as a starter before averaging 5.6 ppg and announcing his intent to transfer. He's been a standout for the past two seasons at Cleveland State, averaging 16.3 ppg and shooting 42.3 percent from beyond the arc in 2014-15. Lewis had also been considering Georgetown, Ohio State and Xavier, and was being heavily pursued by a number of other top-tier programs.
Louisville fans likely best know Lewis from his performance against the Cards last November, where he scored all but 9 of his team's points in a 45-33 loss at the KFC Yum Center. After the game, Lewis drew effusive praise from the man who would become his new head coach a few months later.
"We thought going into that game that that's one of the best point guards in the nation that we will see," Pitino said of Lewis. "He's got size, he gets in the lane, he makes his free-throws ... He was brilliant, we knew he would be."
Lewis can play both guard positions but will likely spend the bulk of his time at the two given the presence of Quentin Snider on the Cardinal roster. Lewis will (and should) likely draw some comparisons to former Louisville standout Preston Knowles. He has the same type of body control, propensity for driving to his right, ability to make contested jump shots, and bulldog attitude. That last quality figures to be a huge asset for a U of L team that is going to need leaders.
A number of things need to happen this offseason for Louisville to be a true contender in 2015-16, and this was the first item on that list. Fifth-year transfers are still a bit of a taboo subject in the college hoops world, and even though this is U of L's first foray into the area, you are justified in being very excited about this news.
