Tuesday’s Cardinal Chitter, Chatter & Clatter

Basketball, Football, ,

Yes, I know it’s baseball season.

And that, as I write U of L hoops coach Kenny Payne is announcing the long-expected but just confirmed hiring of Milt Wagner. To some sort of hybrid position that the Compliance Office has, one would assume, advised won’t hinder the recruitment of a certain grandson.

But, can we talk football for a moment?

Of course, the fingers on the keys to the Smith Corona belong to me.

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By all accounts during recent seasons the Atlantic Coast Conference has been considered the least powerful of the self-designated Power 5.

Gridironly speaking. (OK, last year also in men’s b-ball, but that was an outlier, and today isn’t about that.)

What a difference a year makes. Continue reading Tuesday’s Cardinal Chitter, Chatter & Clatter →

Cards Seize Moment in Regular Season Finale

Baseball

Baseball, lest we forget in this age of rave, is a pastime.

A pastoral series of moments to be savored, then won, lost, survived.

Instances of engagement to be built upon, or having succumbed, to rue.

On a sultry Saturday at the Jim, two Top 20 outfits — Louisville, Virginia — both attempting to close out their regular campaigns with victory in a series then split, there was such a moment.

It  evoked tension thick as the humidity.

The finale against Virginia started early in hopes of avoiding impending inclemency.

So too the Cardinals in a reversal of their early and fatal travails on Friday in a way-behind-from-the-get-go setback.

In the bottom of the first, Levi Usher knocked in a couple of Card baserunners with a two-out single. An inning later, Ben Bianco batted in Isaac Humphrey. Ben Metzinger went yard. Jack Payton also cleared the fence with a solo shot.

Thanks to that assault, and rookie starter Carson Liggett’s back to back scoreless frames, Louisville led 6-0.

As happens, the Cardinal bats quieted. The Cavalier’s stayed silent, thanks to the steadiness of reliever Tate Kuehner. For a bit anyway. Continue reading Cards Seize Moment in Regular Season Finale →

Monday Morning PG: AD Search, Card 9 & Those Wacky Playoffs

Baseball, Basketball, College Sports, Fandom,

Obviously not in a rush, the muckety mucks at the University of Louisville finally hired a search firm to help choose a new Athletic Director.

I understand there are other administrative priorities.

Like, ya know, a university president.

But still, it’s been like five months since that Tyra guy decided to take his talents to Florida State, or somewhere which was somewhere else besides his office at U of L.

That the school wants to be thorough makes sense. But still.

Given familiarity, Josh Heird’s name is the most resonant.

He’s intelligent. He’s competent. He obviously wants the job.

But, as I’ve previously opined, the quiet nature of his personality is different from most fellows who fill such positions. Which are filled with men and a few women, who are Intelligent and competent, as well as being able to work the room.

Is hiring a Johnny or Janie Handshake an imperative? Continue reading Monday Morning PG: AD Search, Card 9 & Those Wacky Playoffs →

Reid Hurls No-No, Nick says “No No” & the 3-5-5

Baseball, Basketball, College Sports, Fandom, Football,

So by now, anybody within the sound of my voice is aware that former Cardinal ace Reid Detmers hurled a no-hitter for the Angels the other night, in a blowout W against Tampa Bay. 12-0.

Pretty cool.

Yet another exclamation point to the incredible job Dan McDonnell has done turning U of L baseball into a national power.

Lots of interesting sidenotes to the 108 pitch performance. Some of which, I gleaned on my own. Like how it was old old school. Only two Ks along the way. Only one other guy has pitched a no-hitter with so few strikeouts since 1980. Francisco Liriano.

But much of which info I pass along I hereby acknowledge came from my favorite baseball writer Joe Posnanski at his JoeBlogs, to which I subscribe. Like the second half of the above paragraph. Credit and acknowledgement to Joe.

Turns out this was the first nine inning complete game Detmers has ever pitched.

At any level. Pros. (Never tossed more than six.) College. HS. (One perfecto. 7 innings.) As in ever.

How about a huzzah for Joe Maddon for leaving the rookie in. Continue reading Reid Hurls No-No, Nick says “No No” & the 3-5-5 →

Hoopaholic’s Gazette: Back on the Beat

Basketball, College Sports, ,

Inquiries have been made.

So I’m advised.

“Why hasn’t Seedy weighed in on the whole NIL deal?”

For one, I have. Kinda.

Back when railing against those fat cats asking for the return of a former U of L AD, I suggested they put their energy, and significant disposable wealth into forming a collective. So there’s that.

Plus, I have nothing to add to the rampant dialog about the accelerating phenomena. It’s the Wild West out there. Those under the table envelopes of cash are now Bitcoin deposits into off shore bank accounts.

You thought the Oklahoma Land Rush was a clusterfuck on meth? Silly you. Google up Isaiah Wong to see how the culture of college sports has changed, seemingly overnight.

 * * * * *

Speaking of that Miami Hurricane, I tried to go Wong on Glorious Editor and the guy controlling the purse strings in Finance on the 73d floor, a fellow named John Beresford Tipton IV.

“How about a little bump for the kid,” I inquired? “I’m read. I’m nothing if all but about name, a nom de plume affectation, image and likeness. Have you seen those mashup vanity portraits I post with my articles? Some would say that stuff is more important to me than quality of content, but there’s always going to be nabobs of negativitude. I’ve been nothing but NIL for years.” Continue reading Hoopaholic’s Gazette: Back on the Beat →

Considering Cardinal Cage Conundrums

Basketball, Football, ,

So, after reading yet another article about the increasingly wild and wooly world of NIL, in which it talks of incoming college athletes getting seven figure contracts from “NIL Collectives,” a U of L fan’s gotta ask.

If these deep pocketed Jurich diehards, who are beating on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past, are indeed Cardinal fans first and foremost, how about they exert their energy and focus to form an NIL Collective to benefit current and future Cardinal athletes?

Asking for myself. As well as a curious fanbase, anxious to move on in football and basketball, in hopes of getting back to where they once belonged. As it now with women’s hoops and volleyball and swimming and baseball.

It’s a new dawn in college athletics.

Where this NIL stuff goes nobody knows.

But if you don’t jump on board, you be standin’ at the bus stop for a long long time. Continue reading Considering Cardinal Cage Conundrums →

U of L’s TJ>AD Imposition

Basketball, Football

This comes at a moment just when the Cardinal men’s basketball program has gained some ballast, when there is legit hope for the days to come, when the fan base for the first time in several years is energized and engaged. And looking ahead.

This comes at a moment when Scott Satterfield appears to be gaining some traction in recruiting and the transfer portal, and fans have set down their torches, stopped calling for the Louisville football coach’s head on a spike, when the faithful are thinking positive. And looking ahead.

The this is this.

Seems a posse of the rich and influential have saddled up on their’s the finest of steeds, and ridden into town to insinuate their swagger into the decision making process for U of L’s next Athletics Director.

The image that comes to mind. As beautifully hand-crafted as those saddles of this gang may be, it appears they are galloping into the fray turned around, facing backwards. Looking into the past.

Tom Jurich is their guy.

Have they no memory?

Do they simply desire back their seats in the Influencers’ Room?

These are intelligent people. Captains of Industry. Entrepreneurs. Leaders of the Community. People who can obviously read the lay of the land, who ostensibly care about the wellbeing of the university.

I don’t get it, frankly. Continue reading U of L’s TJ>AD Imposition →

The Recruiting Elephant in the Room

Basketball,

The air throughout the Ville smells like Cardinal Spirit.

Fans who had jumped ship are returning. Acolytes who never left are energized again like the halcyon days.

Here we are now, entertain us.

The focus is turning by any observation to recruiting generally, to one legacy, albeit a generation removed, specifically.

Like his father before him, one DJ Wagner, Camden HS Class of ’23, is viewed by many as the Second Coming. (At least the Third, or Next. Westley Unseld was obviously First. Darrell Griffith, the Second.)

More reasonable minds understand, as great a baller as Milt’s grandson may be, he probably is not transformational for the U of L program. Other than, as any *****, Top 20 recruit would be for this once proud program to get back to where it once belonged.

We’re not talking a Danny Manning here. Unless he happens to maybe be a Carmelo Anthony.

 * * * * *

So, I ask all who might be obsessed with this consideration to gather round, and allow me to once again tell the informational tale of one Winford Gladstone Boynes III. Continue reading The Recruiting Elephant in the Room →

Nolan Smith Comes Back Home

Basketball, , ,

Spoiler Alert: The only addition to Coach Kenny Payne’s staff announced at U of L Basketball’s Monday press conference was the one we already knew about, Nolan Smith. Meaning the following contains essentially no breaking news about other members of the staff or roster changes.

Early in the presser, one anxious scribe, poised to jump the gun — guilty — inquired, when we might expect announcements about others on the staff?

To which fellow, KP gently chided that the question was premature, saying, “Good timing. I just hit a home run.”

Sufficiently chastised, allow me this observation: Nolan Smith checks all the boxes.

In fraternity parlance, he’s a legacy. He lived in Louisville until he was six, attending preschool at The Temple, then summered here through his youth. His father, you may have heard, was a starter for U of L’s first title team in ’80.

He’s intelligent and articulate. He’s a family man with an engaging wife Cheyna, a daughter and son.

To this point, he was tutored in his coaching career by the GOAT, at Duke, where Smith was an All-American and national champion.

Sitting in the jam-packed conference room, the inner Cardinal diehard in me had goose bumps.

Actually, truth be told, what I felt was verklempt.

This whole Kenny Payne/ Nolan Smith reformulation of University of Louisville Basketball Just Feels Right. Continue reading Nolan Smith Comes Back Home →

Finally, A Voice Breaks The Silence

Basketball

If you are an obsessive compulsive Cardinal fan like me, you’ve been checking various sources several, many, times a day.

Hoping for some sort of official confirmation about Nolan Smith coming to U of L as Kenny Payne’s Associate Head Coach. And, maybe, hopefully, some word about others. Players. Coaches.

C’mon, c’mon, we’re jonesin’ here.

Finally.

There’s this acknowledgement at andscape.com in Jerry Bembry’s interview with Smith.

The future member of the Cardinal family discusses his decision.

He talks about how close he came to playing for the Cards, and why he didn’t.

And, he discusses Mike Krzyzewski’s advice regarding his move to Louisville.

Now, will somebody please get him some correctly colored shirts.

— c d kaplan