Louisville meets with Wisconsin transfer John Blackwell
Louisville’s staff went out of its way to meet with one of the Transfer Portal‘s top guards yesterday.
Wisconsin transfer John Blackwell is on the Cardinals’ radar and had a meeting with members of the staff out on the West Coast yesterday.
Blackwell recently trimmed his list of schools to five, including the Cards, along with Duke, UCLA, Illinois, Arizona, and Alabama. However, he won’t be visiting all of them. The 6-foot-4, 200-pound guard was just out to see Mick Cronin and the Bruins in Los Angeles. The junior also plans to test the NBA Draft waters but commit to a program before May 4, according to Jonathan Givony.
Transfer Portal: Live updates as Louisville, Pat Kelsey begin reshaping the roster
On3 lists Blackwell as the fifth-ranked transfer this spring and the second-ranked shooting guard.
This past season with the Badgers, Blackwell was named a third-team All-Big Ten selection and averaged 19.1 points, 5.1 rebounds, 2.3 assists, and 1.2 steals. The do-it-all guard started all 33 games and reached the 20-point mark on 15 separate occasions, also touching 30 points five times. He also shot 38.9 percent from 3 on a team-high 247 attempts. Blackwell attempted over 10 3s eight times and also showed a knack for getting to the foul line, as there were only three games when the guard failed to get to the stripe, where he makes 86.3 percent of his attempts.
Towards the start of the 2026 calendar year, Blackwell had begun to assert himself as one of the most productive scorers in the country. He came onto the national stage this March when he scored a career-high 34 points and 10 rebounds in the Big Ten Tournament win over Washington and followed that up with a 31-point 4 3-pointer game the next day against Illinois.
Louisville has assembled one of the best one-two punches in all of college basketball with the additions of Oregon guard Jackson Shelstad and Kansas center Flory Bidunga. But the Cards are still looking to add to a roster that has yet to see a scholarship player from last season announce a return.
It’s worth mentioning that Pat Kelsey and Louisville have had success with transfer guards from Wisconsin. Former Badger-turned-Cardinal Chuck Hepburn was the ACC Defensive Player of the Year in 2025, and the two were on the same team in Madison back in 2024, when Greg Gard’s team won 22 games. Blackwell played 18.5 minutes a game that year as a freshman.
It seems obvious, but Louisville will likely have to play the long game here.
Louisville basketball 2026 offseason roster and staff tracker
