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CARDINALS

Onuaku to stay; U of L recruiting heats up

Jeff Greer
Louisville Courier Journal
Feb 28, 2015; Tallahassee, FL, USA; Louisville Cardinals forward Chinanu Onuaku (32) dunks the ball during the first half of the game against the Florida State Seminoles at the Donald L. Tucker Center. Mandatory Credit: Melina Vastola-USA TODAY Sports

The annual off-season roster turnover has begun for the University of Louisville basketball team, but one player whose status was in question is now expected to stay with the Cardinals.

At his season wrap-up press conference on Monday, U of L coach Rick Pitino expressed some frustration with freshman big man Chinanu Onuaku, who started 26 games for the Cards this past season, saying the 6-foot-10 Onuaku had not made the progress he wanted.

Pitino later mentioned that as many as three players could transfer from his program, and he left out Onuaku, Shaqquan Aaron and Anton Gill in mentioning the returning players about which he is excited. That alone led to speculation that all three players were on their way out.

Related: U of L's 15-16 roster full of questions

The school on Monday evening announced that Gill would transfer after The Courier-Journal first broke that news. It's unclear if Aaron, a 6-foot-7 wing who was highly recruited out of high school, will return to U of L for his sophomore year. But Onuaku will be back, a source told The Courier-Journal on Tuesday.

Onuaku averaged three points and 4.6 rebounds a game this season, and his return gives Louisville's 2015-16 roster each of its four centers from last season.

"He's got a long way to go, but he's young," Pitino said Monday. "He's got to make improvements in his attitude and his work ethic. He's got to make improvements in a lot of areas, but he's capable of doing it."

Gill's departure, paired with sophomore Terry Rozier's plans to enter the 2015 NBA draft, means U of L has two open scholarships to fill. The Cardinals already filled the other four open scholarships with three Class of 2015 signees and a verbal pledge from Class of 2015 guard Ryan McMahon, who plans to sign in April.

Pitino said Monday that he and his staff were scouring the junior college and transfer ranks.

"We've got to bring in some guys that can shoot the basketball," Pitino said. "We have targeted the people that we're after. We feel good about it."

Related:Gill to transfer from U of L

Junior-college guard Mychal Mulder visited U of L on Monday, according to multiple recruiting site reports. The 6-foot-4 Mulder is a three-star prospect using 247Sports.com's composite recruiting rankings, and he is considered one of the top five juco prospects at his position.

Trey Lewis, a guard who led Cleveland State in scoring and made a school record 93 3-pointers this season, asked for permission to transfer and received it on Monday. The 6-foot-2 Lewis scored 24 of his team's 33 points in a 12-point loss to Louisville in November and is on the Cards' radar. He would be eligible to play next season because he is on track to graduate this spring.

Sonny Johnson, who coached Lewis at Garfield Heights High near Cleveland, tweeted on Tuesday that U of L was among the schools that have contacted him about Lewis. The former two-star guard in high school originally signed with Penn State in 2011 before transferring to Cleveland State in 2012.

"He's a high-major player," Johnson said. "If you look at his statistics against every big-time school, he performed at a high level ...He just gets better every year. He continues to improve."

Related:Rozier, Harrell enter 2015 NBA draft pool

As the Lewis case shows, though, there will be several more players who come available via the transfer market. ESPN's Jeff Goodman, who compiles a list of transfers each year, wrote on Tuesday that some 700 Division I players transferred last season.

Reach U of L beat writer Jeff Greer at (502) 582-4044 and follow him on Twitter (@jeffgreer_cj).