Pat Kelsey accepts responsibility for London Johnson 'situation' at Louisville

In the end, former G-League player London Johnson won’t play this season for the Louisville Cardinals. This decision comes three days after he had been activated to address depth issues on the team.

Louisville head coach Pat Kelsey backtracked on the decision to lift the redshirt from Johnson. Following the loss to Virginia on Tuesday, Kelsey decided to address the situation directly, taking responsibility for any confusion.

“I want to start out talking about the London Johnson situation,” Kelsey said. “First thing, I want to take responsibility. Issue you guys, you’re all professionals and I really value how hard you work and stuff like that. It could have been handled a lot better, and I think that starts with me. We really tried to fix and find a solution to some of the depth problems we have on our team, and with Mikel [Brown] being out and Ryan [Conwell] getting hurt, we had those initial conversations with London.”

Johnson is a 21-year-old guard from Norcross, Georgia. In 2022, he reclassified to forgo his college career and go straight to the G-League. Then, in October of 2025, he made the announcement that he was going to go to college and committed to Louisville. That was part of a string of G-League players who made the jump back to college in recent months.

“Like I said, I take responsibility,” Kelsey said. “How it was handled, when the statement was put out. The fact of the matter is, when we sat down with him, initially, we had really good conversations. I think London thought, ‘Hey, this could be a good thing.’ I [was] amenable to it. Talked to his people, talked to his agent, and it looked like it was moving in the right direction.”

Kelsey shared that the reason for the confusion was that they’d planned on removing the redshirt. However, Johnson became concerned about the situation. In particular, if it was the right thing for him.

“I think what we’ve all got to remember, too, is it’s a lot to ask of that young man. There’s a lot of things that go into it. He only has two years of eligibility. We’re already halfway through the season. He has a whole lot of ground to make up, I think, before he can really go out there and be a productive player for us. I think as we were building into it, he was starting to get ready for the Boston College game,” Kelsey said.

“And I think it started to be like, ‘Holy crap. I don’t know if I can go out and be an effective player not knowing our system, not knowing our terminology.’ Kind of had a little bit of a change of heart. I get it, I get it 100%. There’s a lot of implications that go along with a decision like that. Only having two years of eligibility. I don’t disparage his decision in any way, shape, or form. But going into that game when it was announced, I think he started talking to people in his family, in his circle, and started having second thoughts… You could just tell, he was a little bit overwhelmed.”

Now, the plan has changed a bit. Kelsey explained that Johnson is set to redshirt for the rest of the year. Meanwhile, the team will need to find a different way to address issues with its depth elsewhere.

“This was me being really aggressive, trying to find a solution, adding depth to our team,” Kelsey said. “But it just wasn’t the right thing. So, I’m sorry how that came across. I’m sorry that we put the statement the way we did. That was at my prompting. That was my mistake.”

Louisville is now sitting at 12-5 overall and 2-3 in ACC play. That’s left them in the middle of the pack overall in the conference, but with plenty of season left to play.