Louisville coach Pat Kelsey praises point guard Chucky Hepburn
Louisville Cardinals head basketball coach Pat Kelsey says that point guard Chucky Hepburn is a ‘natural born leader.’
A whole new conference now knows the frustration of trying to score against Chucky Hepburn.
The former Wisconsin star was named Atlantic Coast Conference Defensive Player of the Year on Monday, an acknowledgment of an excellent season with Louisville.
Hepburn, who was also named first-team all-conference, led a turnaround for the Cardinals with a career-best 16.3 points per game, 5.9 assists, 2.4 steals and a 44.9% shooting percentage.
He’s the first Louisville player named Defensive Player of the Year in the ACC, a conference the program joined in 2014. He led the ACC in steals (73) and finished third in assists (176).
Not only has Louisville transformed from an 8-24 team last year to a 25-6 squad this year — one potentially competing for the same NCAA Tournament terrain with Wisconsin — but Hepburn has been a huge reason why.
He set a program record with 16 assists in a game Jan. 21, he set a program mark with 17 free throws made Feb. 22 and he scored a career-best 37 points in a March 1 win over Pittsburgh.
Hepburn was named to the Big Ten’s all-defense team in 2024 and was twice named honorable mention all-conference during his three years with Wisconsin, but he never averaged more than 12.2 points per game in a season, as a sophomore in 2022-23.
Hepburn made the surprise decision to transfer to Louisville in April. Wisconsin will take the results, given the rapid ascent of incoming transfer John Tonje and a season that has put the program in reach of a top-four seed in the NCAA Tournament.
But Louisville has now moved ahead of Wisconsin in the national rankings, to No. 13 with UW at No. 18, and could conceivably bump Wisconsin from playing first-round tournament games in Milwaukee, depending on how the bracket unfolds Sunday.
Kon Knueppel named second-team all-ACC
Kon Knueppel, the Duke freshman from Wisconsin Lutheran High School in Milwaukee, was named second-team all-conference after his excellent first year for a Blue Devils team that ranked No. 1 in the country Monday morning.
Teammate and fellow freshman Cooper Flagg was named the conference’s player of the year. Both, naturally, appeared on the conference’s all-freshman team.
Westosha Central alumnus Jaeden Zackery, now of Clemson, was named to the all-defensive squad with Hepburn.
— Brooks Holton contributed to this article.