your highest paid college athlete is injured 30 seconds into a huge nationally televised game after your shoe blows apart lol

Our 3 best shooters in the starting lineup were 4/30 (field / 3pt). We won't win games with these stats. Malik didn't miss a shot all game. But, he only played 18min. 4/4 FTs

Late last week Louisville received their first commitment in the class of 2020 in Miami Northwestern DB Ronald Delancy. As most know Miami NW is loaded with talent and the Cardinals also recently offered one of Delancy's teammates, 3-star running back Nathaniel Noel. Noel told me that Louisville (specifically Norval McKenzie) has been recruiting him very hard and are trying to work on getting him up here for a visit this spring.

When asked if Delancy's commitment could influence him coming to Louisville:
"Yes, that is my main man. I would love to play with him again but I want to visit the school and see what it has to offer me before I go ahead and commit."

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Impressed with pitching against Eastern. Freshman Luke Smith gave up two hits in six innings and struck out 6 and walked two. Sophomore relievers also pitched well. Unfortunately Eastern pitchers struck out 9 Cards. Eastern had 0 earned runs.

Unfortunately this is the first game all season where I think the Cards weren’t prepared well and lacked effort. Syracuse simply wanted this more than the Cards and that’s reflected on the defensive end. Mack’s gotta figures out to get the guys reingaged so they don’t limp to the finish line.

NOBODY showed up tonight. No starters, no bench, no staff. Ridiculous. Boeheim sucks, we made him look like Coach K tonight. Pitiful.

Here we go- Cards in the Carrier Dome

I might be reaching here but remember how Pitino could always beat Syracuse but loose to Virginia. Watch Mack be the opposite we loose to Syracuse but beat Virginia. I think we are a better match up with Virginia than Syracuse.

lol!!!

Article from Forde, Thamel et al on this FBI stuff.

A couple of thoughts on the article, linked below, and for the most part copied too ... the actual texts between Code and Self are screenshot in the body of the article, for those who want to see more of that. Kansas is in up to it's chin on this. As is Arizona. I think the hammer falls on them to some degree.

We need some solid PR work on this too though. Because, rightly or wrongly, the perception out there exists that we should be hammered worse than anyone else in all this, and we need to start laying out why we SHOULDN'T be .... I think that's vitally important, to distinguish our actions in this, versus the other schools caught up in this whole scandal.



https://sports.yahoo.com/nike-schoo...gship-nike-basketball-programs-212410675.html


'Nike schools pay too': Federal court docs allude to corruption involving flagship Nike basketball programs


A trove of documents were submitted by defense lawyers this week to Judge Lewis Kaplan ahead of the sentencing of three men found guilty of conspiracy in the federal trial of corruption in college basketball. The filings include sheafs of letters vouching for the character of former Adidas executive James Gatto, Adidas consultant Merl Code Jr. and aspiring agent Christian Dawkins – standard fare in an attempt to gain sentencing leniency from the court. But the filings also include snippets of evidence entered at trial, some of which revive an old, dormant question in the 16-month-old case.

Did other shoe companies beyond Adidas also buy players for their flagship schools?

Code, who worked for 14 years at industry leader Nike before moving to Adidas, said his former employer was in the business of brokering deals between basketball programs and recruits. “Nike schools pay too,” Code said in a conversation recorded by federal investigators on June 20, 2017. In the same conversation, Code names several of the most prominent programs in the country that are outfitted by Nike.

“It’s a corrupt space as it is and cheating is cheating,” Code is quoted as saying in the transcript. “Whether I give you a dollar, 100,000, or I get your mom and dad jobs, it’s cheating. … So in some form or fashion, Duke, North Carolina, Syracuse, Kentucky and all of the schools are doing something to help get kids. That’s just a part of the space.”

South Carolina-based attorney Andrew Mathias, part of Code’s defense team, declined comment on behalf of his client Friday.

The defense team also submitted an August 2017 text conversation between Kansas coach Bill Self and former Adidas consultant T.J. Gassnola, a cooperating witness for the government who was described in court as an Adidas “bag man” and admitted to making multiple payments to help secure players for schools outfitted by the company. In that text exchange, the two discussed making Kansas the top recruiting priority at Adidas.

“In my mind it’s KU Bill Self,” Gassnola texted. “Everyone else falls into line, to [expletive] bad, that’s what’s right for adidas Basketball. And I know Iam RIGHT. The more you win, have lottery picks. And you happy. That’s how it should work in my mind.”

Self responded: “That’s how ur works. At unc and Duke.”

“Kentucky as well,” Gassnola replied.

Yet the Nike – and Under Armour – part of the space has been relatively undisturbed since the federal investigation was first made public in September 2017. Former assistant coaches at Nike schools Arizona, USC and Oklahoma State have been charged with bribery and accepted plea deals, and a few other Nike-outfitted programs were implicated via testimony, evidence and other court submissions. But aside from Arizona, where an NCAA investigation into the basketball program has begun according to multiple sources, Nike’s most established programs appear to have gone unscathed.

It is unclear whether federal investigators have any inclination to continue probing the extent of college basketball corruption beyond the 2018 trial of Gatto, Code and Dawkins, and the two trials scheduled for this year. Yet to underscore the point Code made in the transcripts, it seems unlikely that Adidas would have been bidding against itself for the services of top players — this was a market driven by competition. Ultimately, much of this may be a job left to the NCAA instead of the feds, and it’s also unclear whether the governing body of college sports has the wherewithal to investigate what could be dozens of programs in a timely fashion.

“We certainly have the manpower and the willpower,” NCAA president Mark Emmert said in December. But the association remains largely locked into a waiting game as the legal cases wind their way through the judicial system.

In the June 20, 2017, transcript, Code also alluded to on-campus attempts to keep players aligned to Adidas even if they attend a school outfitted by a rival apparel company — to the point of having operatives on campus following players to class.

“Now, if I have an Adidas kid who is high on my radar and he goes to Kentucky or Duke, I just, to just make sure that we have managed the relationship enough that we maintained, because again I told you, those factors at Kentucky,” Code is quoted as saying, before an unintelligible part of the recording. “So you continue to stay in contact. … I’m trying to go to the games. I’m trying to meet them on the road. … I need to be visible and present.

“And if the kid is that important, I need to be there. Right. Because I need to fight off somebody because the out of sight, out of mind is really in play here. Because you have guys who are going to camp, send people to move into their city … they’re going to walk around with book bags like they’re going to class. They’re going to walk to class with the kid every day. It is a mess because there’s so much money involved.”

Whether all the letters and evidence and sentencing arguments submitted by the defense lawyers will have any sway over Kaplan remains to be seen. It seems like a long shot, since much of it appears to be an attempt to relitigate a trial the defense already lost, and Kaplan took a hard line throughout the proceedings.

But beyond legal value, the submitted material serves two purposes: as a reminder of how wide this scandal really might be; and a reinforcement of how time consuming it would be for either the feds or the NCAA to expand their inquiries beyond Adidas.

...couldn't find good jobs anywhere else? Looks like many of them will be staying off of food stamps. And we're still a couple months away from the start of Spring practice...

Some cold hard facts...

1) 7 of our Out of Conference Opponents are either in the top 50 in the RPI, or they are in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place in their conferences.

2) Cards went 4-3 against those opponents.

3) We are tied for 4th place in the ACC.

4) Keeping things in perspective.... we lost 3 top 40 players (Snider, Spalding, and Adel) plus Lance Thomas and one of the ACC's leading shot blockers in Mahmoud.

5) We basically lost 4 starters from last year's team.

6) We replaced them with 3x 2\3-star players (Sutton, Fore, Cunningham) and one former 4-star player (Agua) who doesn't even play much at all.

7) Despite the downgrade in talent and loss of personal, our defense, according to Ken Pom is ranked 15th in the entire country... against the toughest RPI schedule we have seen since the 2016/17 season.

8) This is the highest rated defense that our guy, Chris Mack has ever coached... which proves the point that if he could get better talent, he would have better results.

9) This team, in 3 games against UNC and Duke, has looked 1000x more competitive than it ever has against similar loaded Duke teams (2017/18, 2015) despite having less talent than those Cardinal teams, and those teams being coached by a Hall of Fame coach or one of his assistants.

10) Cards have been competitive in EVERY game... this year so far.

Thoughts?

Some cold hard facts...

1) 7 of our Out of Conference Opponents are either in the top 50 in the RPI, or they are in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place in their conferences.

2) Cards went 4-3 against those opponents.

3) We are tied for 4th place in the ACC.

4) Keeping things in perspective.... we lost 3 top 40 players (Snider, Spalding, and Adel) plus Lance Thomas and one of the ACC's leading shot blockers in Mahmoud.

5) We basically lost 4 starters from last year's team.

6) We replaced them with 3x 2\3-star players (Sutton, Fore, Cunningham) and one former 4-star player (Agua) who doesn't even play much at all.

7) Despite the downgrade in talent and loss of personal, our defense, according to Ken Pom is ranked 15th in the entire country... against the toughest RPI schedule we have seen since the 2016/17 season.

8) This is the highest rated defense that our guy, Chris Mack has ever coached... which proves the point that if he could get better talent, he would have better results.

9) This team, in 3 games against UNC and Duke, has looked 1000x more competitive than it ever has against similar loaded Duke teams (2017/18, 2015) despite having less talent than those Cardinal teams, and those teams being coached by a Hall of Fame coach or one of his assistants.

10) Cards have been competitive in EVERY game... this year so far.

Thoughts?

All hail U of L! Go Cards!

In case you havent heard, UNC @Duke.
Its plastered all over Espin. Usually i dont watch Espin unless a game is on. Need to switch to Bar Rescue. I digress.

I say its the SECOND best rivalry because they play twice and can play up to 4 times a year.

The best is the UofL-SuCkS rivalry.
Only get one chance, unless that rare NCAAT meeting.i believe theyve met 7 times in the NCAAT.

Yeah UofL hasnt pulled their weight lately, however its SuCkS' superbowl. The best theyll look all year as they flame out in the tourney AGAIN with the #2 ranked class.

Go Heels !

We got us a really good one with Coach Brown...

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Is it me or does it feel like this coaching staff would prefer to operate in some degree of anonymity? I just feel like there is little buzz around this football program. Not saying anyone else would do better but it just feels off to me.

Just was hoping to see a bit more media presence or promotion. Maybe once Spring practice is over he’ll get out and about more.

One thing with the early Spring Ball are the two Friday high school coaches clinics. The brilliant thing is that by having the early practice, the Louisville program has a fairly exclusive stage to bring in high school coaches from all over the country to participate and watch Louisville's staff work with the players and make connections. At a time when HS coaches are looking for something to do and get out of the house and get back to it, Louisville gives them a platform when they don't have to compete with Spring Break schedules and competing programs. Think of all of the time and money spent to reach out to all of these programs when they could all just come here instead. How do you get HS coaches to come and spend time with a program that was 2-10 last year, you host the only game in town.

Ennis and Blakenbaker especially have showcased this opinion ...

I am confused by the narrative that any QB would walk in here and just be the starter from day 1.

Aside from a few headliners ala Hurts and Fields and Martell... There arent and weren't guys looking around that have fewer question marks than Pass Cunningham and Now Conley. Most of them have more question marks , were lower rated , battled injuries , lost their starting spot etc ...

None of these transfers we've been linked to were sure fire bets and they knew the job wasn't theirs from day one.

I'd rather roll the dice with what we have have and allow the staff to go and recruit their studs and develop them.

Sounds to me like the staff is pleased with Cunningham, Conley , and the walk on.

Which realistic transfer that actually looked at coming was going to come here and automatically be light-years better than the 4 we have ? I'll wait

I had heard snippets of this on radio, but wanted to see the whole thing.

Figured others may want to also. So here it is:

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MEMBERSHIP CARD

Basketball season is in full swing and the future looks very bright for Chris Mack’s program. Louisville inked six signatures and currently sits fifth in the Rivals team rankings for the 2019 class. How have these six players been doing so far through their senior season? Let’s take a look…

https://louisville.rivals.com/news/future-cardinals-lighting-up-high-school-scoreboards