The staff is starting to take shape.
Sam Upshaw Jr./Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK
New Louisville head men’s basketball coach Pat Kelsey will be bringing his top three assistants from Charleston with him to U of L.
According to Field of 68’s Jeff Goodman, Kelsey is still looking to add one more assistant whose primary focus will be on the recruiting side of things.
Let’s look at the three assistants Kelsey is bringing with him to The Ville:
Brian Kloman
Kloman, 44, is Kelsey’s right-hand man, someone who has been sitting next to the head coach for each of the last 10 seasons.
“Brian Kloman should be the prototype assistant coach moving forward in our profession,” Kelsey said of Kloman before the start of last season. “He is an elite relationship builder. He uses this special gift to be a great recruiter, but more importantly, he uses it to build special bonds with our current players. The key to retention is the investment of time into players. You have to love them. He is the best I’ve ever seen at this. He has become an elite defensive coach and runs our defense as the coordinator.”
Prior to Winthrop, Kloman worked as an assistant coach at Tennessee Tech and North Carolina Central, where he helped LeVelle Moton and company make the 2014 NCAA tournament.
To me, the most interesting part of Kloman’s background is this:
An accomplished recruiter, Kloman is the founder of recruitingrumors.com, one of the fastest growing coaching and recruiting services across the country at the time of its inception in March of 2008. The website served to help countless college coaches with player evaluations over the course of the rigorous process of recruiting.
From recruitingrumors.com to second chair at Louisville in 15 years is a hell of a come up.
If DePaul would just get over itself and let me run their program, we could have an even better story on our hands.
Michael Cassidy
Cassidy, 28, is sort of the cliche young, forward thinker on Kelsey’s staff. The Australian native arrived in Charleston in August of 2021 after spending his summer serving as an assistant coach for the U19 Australian National Team at the U19 FIBA World Cup. He worked alongside Kelsey for all three seasons with the Cougars.
All of Cassidy’s coaching experience prior to Charleston came in Australia. He has close ties to the NBA Global Academy, which is housed in Australia, and has helped produce league talent like Andrew Bogut and Joe Ingles.
Cassidy was instrumental in the recruiting of Australian players Reyne Smith (now a Cardinal) and Evan Kilminster, as well as Ante Brzovic from Croatia and CJ Fulton from Ireland. His inclusion on the Cardinal staff would lead one to believe that Kelsey wants to continue to recruit from abroad at U of L.
Thomas Carr
Carr, 39, has been with Kelsey at Charleston for each of the last two seasons, which both resulted in trips to the NCAA tournament.
After a stint at East Tennessee State under Murray Bartow, Carr worked for Kevin Keatts’ UNC-Wilmington and N.C. State staffs as both an assistant and director of basketball operations from 2014 to 2019.
Prior to joining Kelsey’s staff at Charleston, Carr spent two years serving as the athletics director at national high school powerhouse Word of God Christian Academy in Raleigh.
“Thomas is the total package,” Kelsey said when hiring Carr at Charleston. “First of all, he is a terrific human being that believes that shaping the lives of young people is a coach’s biggest calling. Secondly, he is an accomplished coach with championship experience in the CAA. Third, he is an elite relationship builder. This not only makes him what I believe one of the nation’s top recruiters but also someone beloved by players, coworkers, and members of the community. Thomas is a Division I head coach in the not-too-distant future, and I view his hire as a coup for The College. Our City.”
Carr also made some national headlines in 2021 for coaching an AAU game while wearing the team’s full uniform.
The jersey sat unused in Carr’s Rock Hill hotel room until Sunday, when he woke up in preparation for the 16-and-under team’s crucial tournament semifinal game. He had a gut feeling his players could use a little extra pep, considering they were facing a strong opponent and had to wake up at 7:05 a.m.
“For 8 a.m. games, we’ve got a saying: the first in the gym wins,” Carr said. “We got our guys up earlier than we normally would or probably should have. It was one of those things where I just said, ‘Man, I want to make sure that the energy is the way it should be.’ Just doing something different.”
So he ditched his traditional polo shirt and khakis for Rice’s Team Loaded NC jersey and shorts.
It was a tight fit – “He’s a lot stronger, more athletic and better looking in it than I am,” Carr joked of Rice – but it got the immediate reaction he wanted from his sophomore players as well as former UNC-Asheville star Ahmad Thomas, the head coach of the 16-and-under team. (Carr is his lead assistant.)
Overall, it’s hard to fault Kelsey for wanting to bring his guys with him to Louisville after the success the group produced at Charleston, especially over the last two years. Still, this is a very young staff, and if the report about Kelsey looking to add a recruiting specialist is accurate, it’s probably not going to get a ton older.
I’m good with this, but I do hope that whoever the addition is winds up being someone with some extended experience at this level.
