LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- If I'm reading the room correctly where the University of Louisville and its men's basketball fans are concerned, the best summary of the current feeling is that they've had enough of the snow but they wouldn't mind a good bit more Reyne.
On Pat Kelsey's second full day as Louisville coach, he added his first portal acquisition. Reyne Smith had made 294 three-pointers in three seasons for Kelsey at College of Charleston. And the coach played a hunch — jump shots travel.
Smith's has. In Louisville's six-game winning streak, the 6-foot-2-inch senior from Australia has made 26-58 three-pointers (44.8%) and averaged 16.5 points per game.
And he once again has proved a basketball adage that we all ought to know well by now — it doesn't matter where you come from. In this game, players come from everywhere. Even Charleston. Even Smith's hometown of Ulverstone, Tasmania. Smith sports a tattoo of a Tasmanian devil, not the one from Looney Tunes but the actual animal, a reminder of the island of his birth.
Louisville's Reyne Smith fires a three over fellow Australian Tyrese Proctor of Duke.
Smith grew up playing a lot of Australian rules football and some cricket but he gravitated to basketball, where he was a natural shooter. His game blossomed on the Australian mainland at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.
He has represented his country in international competition in several FIBA age-group international competitions, winning a pair of gold medals. He averaged 20.7 points per game and shot 49.9% from three-point range in the 2020 Australia U-20 National Championships.
"I'm 6-2," he said. "So if I was going to be successful in the game, I had to develop something."
Shooting seems to have been a good choice.
If you're trying to think of another great basketball you've heard of from Ulverstone, you're likely stumped. He did play against Duke guard Tyrese Proctor, in high school in Canberra, if that counts.
At Charleston, Kelsey gave him the nickname, "Big-game Reyne." And it fit. The remarkable thing, however, is that it fits as well in the Atlantic Coast Conference as it did in the Coastal Athletic Association. Four weeks ago he was the ACC Player of the Week.
On Saturday, he made seven of 11 three-pointers, including 4-5 in the second half, to lead Louisville in an upset at Pittsburgh.
Reyne Smith reacts to a three-pointer in Louisville's win over Clemson.
Kelsey, it should be noted, is not surprised that the undersized shooting guard with the ultra-quick release is thriving. But he also is incredibly pleased.
"Rayne, gosh, he's just been doubted, right?" Kelsey said on a recent radio show. "He just doesn't pass the eye test and look the part. He had a phenomenal career at Charleston. There so many people like, 'Man, can play at that level?' I never doubt it for a second. First of all, he's got an elite skill that's as good as anybody in the country, and that's shooting the basketball. But he's also tough. He's so much better of a defender than people think. He has a ridiculously high basketball IQ. He is an unbelievable teammate. He's a winner. And you know, what's amazing to me is he's come to Louisville, he's at the power five level, he's in the ACC — and he's better. He's better."
It shouldn't surprise any of us, of course. What is Steph Curry's documentary titled? Underrated? Where did he play in college? Davidson? Who is college basketball's current leader for national player of the year? Johni Broom of Auburn. And where did he play his first two seasons of college basketball? Morehead State?
If you can play, you can play.
Smith, it turns out, can play. Last season, Skyy Clark led Louisville with 47 three-pointers made on the season. A little more than halfway through this season, Smith has 61. He's shooting 39.1% from beyond the arc on the season, but as the team grows more confident in its post-injury attack, he has gotten better. He's shooting 46.4% from three-point range in conference play, and making 4.3 threes per game.
He credits his teammates for the confidence, and the shooting opportunities. He says they have made it a priority to get him to the ball, and to watch Louisville play is to see he isn't kidding. At Pittsburgh, Smith got hot and the Cards bent over backwards to find him in transition, where his quick-release threes were devastating.
"I kind of give credit to the guys for putting trust in me every single day, and the work we do every single day," Smith said. "There's no real secret to that. But I give credit to my guys because there's days where I don't make shots at all, and they still trust me to tell me to shoot the next one. They're still trying to find me. And it kind of builds confidence, and hopefully I can build confidence for the rest of the guys."
Smith is an enthusiastic golfer. And in a preseason video with teammates Kasean Pryor and Noah Waterman, he showed off his ability to solve a Rubik's cube in a minute and a half or so.
Reyne Smith, here getting encouragement from Terrence Edwards Jr., credits his teammates for his rising shooting percentages.
"There's all these algorithms to learn," he explained in talking about how he taught himself to solve the cube.
There's no real algorithm to solving big-time college basketball, but Smith is finding his way.
And he says Kelsey has been a big part of his own evolution.
"I think it's definitely a really special the relationship we've built over the years," Smith said before the season. "Kind of my trust in him has led to the trust he's gotten in me to go out there and at times shoot terrible shots and make some plays that he's probably wondering what I'm doing and we've kind of built a trust over what I've kind of called that every day kind of journey, that it's just being consistent in the approach of every single, day which then leads to trust and you kind of play with a little more freedom because he knows that you're going to follow the culture every day and you're the same every day."
From the Coastal Athletic to the Atlantic Coast, Smith's effectiveness not only has remained the same — it's gotten better.
Louisville Basketball Coverage:
- BOZICH | Starting at Syracuse, can Louisville stretch its winning streak to 7, 8, 9 ...?
- CRAWFORD | Louisville looked like a program on its way back in 82-78 win at Pitt
- BOZICH | Is Louisville the most improved men's power conference program? A look at the numbers
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