7-foot-5 USC transfer Gabe Dynes commits to Louisville
Louisville has its backup center.
7-foot-5 USC transfer Gabe Dynes has committed to Louisville out of the NCAA Transfer Portal. Dynes, who has one year of eligibility remaining, is a native of Independence, Kentucky. He picked the Cardinals over Kentucky, NC State, and others.
Transfer Portal: Live updates as Louisville, Pat Kelsey begin reshaping the roster
This past year with the Trojans, Dynes averaged 2.9 points and 2.3 rebounds, and shot 78.8 percent from the floor in 30 games. He ended up making six starts for Southern California, finishing in double-figures three times and scoring a season high of 16 points against UC Santa Cruz and eight rebounds against Maryland.
Dynes spent the first two seasons of his career at Youngstown State, where he was named to the Horizon League All-Defensive Team twice. In the 2024-25 season, he led the nation with 104 blocks and averaged 6.9 points and 5.8 rebounds per game. Dynes added four double-doubles for Youngstown and helped Ethan Faulkner’s team reach 21 wins. The seven-footer’s block rate of 14.4 was the third-best among individual college basketball players that year, and he also led the Horizon League, making 72.4 percent of his field goals. More known for his defense, Dynes has attempted only two 3-pointers in his three-year career and shot just 35.3 percent from the line this past season.
Coming out of Simon Kenton, Dynes shot 74 percent from the field as a senior, which was the second best in the state of Kentucky, and was named first-team all-conference by the Northern Kentucky Association of Basketball Coaches. He was the Division 1 Defensive Player of the Year and averaged 12.6 points and 9.8 rebounds per game.
Right now, Louisville’s frontcourt consists of transfers Dynes, Flory Bidunga, and Alvaro Folgueiras. And Pat Kelsey and staff now have the physicality that they did not have in the post a season ago.
Louisville basketball 2026 offseason roster and staff tracker
