Trip equal parts vacation, work for Cards

AGUADILLA, P.R. –

The winningest class in University of Louisville basketball history graduated in the spring.

Montrezl Harrell skipped the NBA draft to return to school. Kevin Ware transferred. Chane Behanan was dismissed from U of L earlier in the season and eventually opted to turn pro. And associate head coach Kevin Keatts left Rick Pitino's staff to become the head man at UNC-Wilmington.

Oh, and U of L joined the Atlantic Coast Conference just in time to form what could be the toughest college basketball league the sport has ever seen.

Quite the offseason, no?

It's all over now. U of L starts a new season Friday night, tipping off at 7:30 p.m. EST against Minnesota with the eye-catching backdrop of a U.S. Coast Guard hangar here in this sleepy town nestled up against Puerto Rico's northwest coast.

Both teams have gotten the full island experience, visiting the beach Thursday and boarding a U.S. Coast Guard cutter off of Crash Boat Beach. They've also toured U.S. Air Base Borinquen, the site of the game, and met scores of Coast Guard personnel stationed here in Puerto Rico.

But the trip turns serious Friday evening. The game's on ESPN, and Minnesota, coached by Rick Pitino's son Richard, has NCAA tournament ambitions. The Gophers run a lot of similar sets on offense and defense to Louisville.

Louisville guard Chris Jones likened it to the Cardinals' NCAA tournament matchup against Manhattan last March. Manhattan coach Steve Masiello, like Richard Pitino, was a former assistant to Rick Pitino, and Louisville needed all 40 minutes to outlast the Jaspers.

"They know exactly what we do. We know what they do," Jones said. "It's going to be great: Father who taught son, son looked up to father. … It's going to be a great show."

There's so much new about this game and this Louisville team. Six scholarship freshmen joined the squad. Russ Smith and Luke Hancock are off to professional pursuits. Same goes for Stephan Van Treese and Tim Henderson.

And the experience is new to Louisville, too. The Cards played in the Bahamas two seasons ago, but that wasn't part of the Armed Forces Classic series, an annual slate of college hoops games on military bases. Several of the players played at military academies, but this was a first-hand, on-site look at U.S. military personnel.

"This is a great experience for us," Louisville big man Montrezl Harrell said, "being out here and giving back a little bit."

Yet some of it still feels old and familiar, like facing off against a Richard Pitino-coached Minnesota team. The staffs are friendly, some of them are coworkers.

Rick Pitino watches or follows just about every Minnesota game, and Richard does the same with Louisville.

The younger Pitino helped coach Louisville's Wayne Blackshear, and was the first assistant coach on U of L's staff to find Terry Rozier, a sophomore guard expected to have a breakout season this winter.

Both Harrell and Jones, when asked about Friday's game, said the same exact thing to start.

"It's going to be hard-fought game," they each said in separate interviews.

For just about everyone involved with Louisville basketball, it's nice to get back to talking about games. The team, especially the players, took the Sweet 16 elimination from last season's NCAA tournament hard. It was a jolting end to a campaign that had seemingly found a rhythm just as the postseason started.

What followed after that, though, gave the 2014-15 season promise. Harrell's return pumped new life in a Louisville team that didn't expect him back, and the new challenge of the ACC, with its four Hall of Fame coaches, makes this winter especially intriguing.

Almost eight months after that painful end to the season, and the careers of U of L's winningest class in program history, a new campaign is here. And U of L's off-the-beaten-path start should be an entertaining one.

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