Louisville announced today that freshman guard Shaqquan Aaron will be transferring from the university. This is the 3rd part of a major haul in the Cardinals roster heading into next season. Aaron joins Anton Gill as the 2nd player to transfer from the program. Louisville signed Cleveland State guard Trey Lewis also this week.
Aaron confirmed last week that he would not transfer but try to rough it out despite multiple things happening. He changed his mind, after learning about Louisville recruiting 5th year senior Damion Lee. Deng Adel is also coming in for a small-forward spot and will get many minutes already. But this season was a horrible one for him.
Shaqquan, a Seattle native, was forced to sit out 30% of the season because the NCAA ruled that his parents received improper benefits during his high school career. Aaron averaged 1.3 PPG and started two games but was never to find his tracking. His highest scoring game was 11 points in Wake Forest for his first exciting performance.
Aaron was the highest ranked recruit that Louisville signed coming into this season and still received a horrible amount of minutes. The one thing that is most memorable of Aaron was when Pitino called him out after the loss to Syracuse even though he didn’t play a single minute. Pitino even had some questionable comments on Aaron last week during a press conference.
“I don’t know about that one,” Pitino said. “Don’t know. I haven’t seen enough to like yet. It’s a wait and see. He came in late. He’s got a bad body. He’s not thrilled with the weight room. He needs a makeover.”
Louisville now has two roster openings and there are multiple players the Cardinals are looking after. Damion Lee is the main target but they could also sign Maverick Rowan if he reclassifies for this season. The Cardinals have some work to do to look like a contender next season. Pitino will get this team into shape and sign two more players to give everyone a look on what the roster will look like for the 2015-2016 season.