2020-21 was a tough experience for the Louisville basketball program. However, I’d suggest that we try to remember it as the year that gave us Carlik Jones. An open letter to a Cardinal great.
Carlik,
The last year has been unprecedented for innumerable reasons. In the case of Louisville basketball, COVID-19 only served to exacerbate an already difficult season. Not having Louisville in the NCAA Tournament is an extreme rarity. No postseason appearance two years in a row? That’s something that has not happened in 40 years. Around here, March is synonymous with postseason basketball. To be without it two years in a row might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for many of the fans.
More than anything, this season is a missed opportunity to see one of the best players in school history compete at the highest level. When the dust settles, when the final horn sounds the second week of April, and we have a chance to look back at this season with a more level head, I believe there will be one unequivocally positive takeaway from the season. And that’s Carlik Jones.
The circumstances that led to your recruitment and subsequent commitment now feel like a predestined union of a player and program. A number of dominoes had to fall in order for Coach Mack to reach out to you.
Louisville unexpectedly lost guard Darius Perry to transfer. Players like Khristian Lander, Deivon Smith, Devin Askew, Earl Timberlake, and Adam Miller all felt like near locks to be wearing a Louisville jersey this season at some point. JUCO guard Jay Scrubb signed with Coach Mack but wound up leaving for the NBA.
It’s not that you were overlooked or undervalued, it’s simply that there were other players who could have been in Louisville for more than one year that never panned out.
Looking back, there is zero doubt in my mind that anyone who is around the program would change the way things worked out. In a season full of injuries and illnesses, postponements, cancellations, and reschedules, you were the one steady presence on your team.
Few guards in the country were more efficient on the offensive end. Even fewer in crunch time, when things mattered the most.
You became a tenacious rebounder, a reliable defender, and a consummate leader or a team that desperately needed you.
In the city of Louisville, I’m sure you’ve found that basketball is more than just a game. It is deeply ingrained in the city’s culture. Before the Yum! Center or the Kueber Center; before the campus was as you see it today, Louisville was a commuter school. Students living on campus were few and far between. Football, baseball, women’s basketball, and other sports were an afterthought. Louisville basketball was the driving force behind much of the acclaim and recognition the city and school received long before things are the way you find them today.
I’m sure you’ve also come to realize that you came to Louisville when times were difficult. Nevermind that you had to deal with a pandemic and the countless difficulties that accompanied that this season. Louisville is dealing with a dark cloud over its head. A financial, PR, and recruiting hardship that has changed the way of life for many.
Even through all of that, you became one of the lone bright lights around the Louisville program this season.
I know things did not end the way you intended. And I don’t know what your future holds at Louisville, as a professional, or wherever life takes you.
Wherever you wind up, I want you to know that you deserved better. You deserved 22,000 fans at every home game. You deserved far more national acclaim. I believe you earned another stab at a run in the NCAA Tournament.
Regardless of all of that, I feel you earned a special place in the hearts of many fans and supporters of the program. No matter where you end up this fall, I want to thank you for being a Cardinal. Here’s to the future, wherever it takes us.
Next: How transfer Mason Faulkner would fit with Louisville basketball
Carllik
yes we enjoyed seeing you play buy it is obvious your goals were not the same as the teams, so as much as we thank you for the past year, it is time for you to move on with your future. your return would only hurt the chances of the new players coming in. you could come back 4 more years and you will never win P.O.Y in the ACC. I hope you enjoyed your ONE and LAST season here. A point guard is suppose to make the players around him better and that you did not do.
I am guessing you are a fine young man but your time has come and gone. thank you for some great games , now go and enjoy the rest of your life.