The latest addition to the Louisville basketball team wants to get his new team back to the Final Four and help the Cardinals win a national championship.
“Right now I’m just worried about my freshman year and working hard and trying to help the Cardinals get back to the Final Four and hopefully we can get this championship,” Montrezl Harrell told Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.com from the USA U18 trials in Colorado Springs.
Louisville won the Big East Tournament title a year ago and then lost to in-state rival Kentucky in the Final Four.
But with the return of most of their core plus the addition of the 6-8 Harrell, a former Virginia Tech pledge, the Cardinals could be a preseason No. 1 in some polls.
“We’re returning a lot of our team,” he said. “We really only lost two players and we’re returning a lot of our team. With the guys already there they have great chemistry together and by adding me I think we have a great shot to get back to the Final Four.”
Harrell said he was initially disappointed when Virginia Tech fired Seth Greenberg, putting him in limbo.
“It was kind of crazy at first,” he said. “It was crazy how they fired Coach Greenberg without giving a reason why.”
He then visited Louisville last weekend and chose the Cardinals in part because of his relationships with coach Rick Pitino and with assistant Kevin Keatts, his former Hargrave Military Academy coach.
“Louisville just kind of felt like home to me so that’s where I chose to play my freshman year of basketball,” he said.
Harrell has work to do to develop his offensive game but plans to bring “high energy” and the ability to rebound and block shots.
Harrell will join a front line that includes center Gorgui Dieng and forward Chane Behanan.
“They just told me to come in and work hard,” he said. “I’m going to end up getting a lot of minutes as a freshman.
“I could go in and potentially start. Depends on how hard I work. I’m just going there to work hard and help the team as much as I possibly can.”
Eventually, he plans to be in the NBA.
“It’s every kid’s dream to to get to the NBA,” he said. “That’s my ultimate goal, to go to the NBA.”
